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30) The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava.
The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In this recommendation, the author recommends to reduce the funds budgeted for education and funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities in order to have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults. While it may be true that there is a need to consider how to allocate the funds in budget appropriately, the author's argument does not make a cogent case for reducing funds for education and athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. The reasons are stated as follows.
In the first place, the author asserts that they can safely reduce funds budgeted for education based on the assumption that the number of students enrolled in their public schools will soon decrease dramatically. Just citing a fact that birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago, the author make such an assumption. However, it is very possible that the birthrate five years ago was so high that the value of birthrate of last year which although was one-half that of five years ago was still very large. There is also a possibility that last year's birthrate was higher than the year before last year and maybe the birthrate will be higher and higher, hence without the information about the particular birthrate, the recommendation seems unpersuasive.
In the second place, even if the birthrate does be decreasing and the number of students enrolled will soon decline, it is unreasonable to make a assertion that they can safely reduce the funds for education and athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. On one hand, to some extent the number of students have nothing to do with the funds for education since it is possible that people may pay more attention to the education because they recognize that education is of significance in the competitive society in the future, thus it may call for a large funds for education and those recreational facilities. On the other hand, adults also needs education, for example, someone whose major was e-commerce finally works as a salesman and he has to learn something about marketing. Therefore, without the strong evidences concerning that they can really safely reduce funds for education and those recreational facilities, the recommendation seems invalid.
Finally, even if they can safely reduce funds for education and those recreational facilities, the author unfairly assumes that the measure will be effective to gain the goal to have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults. However, it may not be the case. There is a possibility that the funds budgeted for education and athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities were originally a small part that even if reducing funds on those fields there has little effect on getting enough fund for city facilities and programs used primarily by adults. Therefore, without the information concerning the weight of budgets for each field, the recommendation seems unconvincing.
In conclusion, in order to better evaluate this recommendation, the author needs to offer more information concerning the recent years' particular birthrate, the strong evidences to prove that they can reduce funds for education and those recreational facilities safely and the weight of budgets for education and athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities.
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发表于 2012-4-27 19:45:58
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