The following appeared in a letter to the editor of Parson City's local newspaper."In our region of Trillura, the majority of money spent on the schools that most students attend—the city-run public schools—comes from taxes that each city government colle

The author of the letter above believes that Parson City (PC) residents appreciate the value of decent public school more than the Blue City (BC) residents. The conclusion is grounded in a comparison between the budget assigned by BC against the budget allocated by PC for public education. The comparison is questionable because of the lack of several vital evidence exclusively directing us to give credence to the writer’s conclusion.

First, we need to have an evidence attesting that the number of public schools is corresponding in each town. There is a high possibility that the public schools are more frequent in PC than in FC. This naturally calls for more expenditure on the maintenance of each class. Thus, with this probability we cannot surely assume that PC merits the public education more than the FC.

Secondly, the author needs to provide the evidence which the population of the students is proportional in each town. The number of citizens does not necessarily reflect the number of students in each town. The possibility of different number of students can rule out the conclusion of the author. Where there are fewer students in the FC there would not be any desire to allocate more money in there. Furthermore, there might be some grave defects in the public educational system in PC which required more money, while in FC these demands might have been met years ago. Infrastructures such as a playground, or laboratories or the bus services of the schools, might demand such a budget in the PC while the same things were decently working in FC. The author needs to provide evidence that the conditions of the schools were same to make a judgment evenhandedly.

Thirdly, an evidence is needed to show that the tax revenues of both towns are comparable. Although the population is nearly the same, there is no guarantee that the tax incomes of PC and FC, are at the same level. First governments of these towns might levy a different tax rate on citizens’ incomes. It is probable that with the higher tax levied on the people of PC than FC, the PC’s government was more able to pay for the public education than the FC. Another possible scenario is that the average income of the people among these cities may differ. If the incomes in the FC are lower, simultaneously there will be less money left in terms of taxes to spend on the public education. Thus the author needs to incorporate evidence in the argument attesting that both tax incomes are similar in the compared cities.

In short, the lack of the enumerated evidence in the statement above has rendered the conclusion of the author untenable. In order to help us make a fair evaluation, the author needs to buttress his/her argument with the vital evidences discussed above.