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

In the letter, the editor argues that Parson City residents place a higher value on offering good education in public schools than Blue City do in that Parson City spend more money on public schools.At first glance, the argument seems persuasive; however, the lack of specific evidence leads me to conclude that this argument is flawed in many respects.

First and foremost, the author needs to provide more concrete evidence on the budget on public schools to take the information at face value. Since the author only mentions about recent years, it can be just an aberration. For example, one of the schools has been deconstructed so the city needs to provide more money on the reconstruction of the school and this led the Parson City to spend more money for these years. Even if the amount of money they spent is greater than Blue City did, it is still hard to corroborate that Parson City spend much more money than Blue City. If the budget for the education in both cities is inherently smaller than any other parts, the difference between the two cities can be minute.

Secondly, the author needs to supplement the argument with more specific information on the innate condition of the two cities. The author mentions that the number of residents of both cities are about the same number and this means that the amount of money they spend for the public schools can indicate the interest and concerns that they have .However, the number of residents is not closely related to the number of students who go to public schools. It is plausible that most of residents in Blue city are retiree and not many students are in the city. Therefore, to compare those two city only with the budget on public schools, the author needs to rule out other factors by providing more information on the innate conditions.

Last but not least, more solid evidence is necessary for the soundness of the conclusion that Parson city residents have a higher value on providing a good education in public. Since money cannot represent the whole factors and elements in the society, the higher budget on the public schools also cannot mean the level of concerns on the public schools. It is likely that Blue city residents go the extra mile to improve the school environment by themselves such as volunteering or provide extra classes by themselves. By these ways, they do not need to spend a lot of money on the public schools, but they are able to contribute to public schools by themselves.

In brief, the argument is unsound on many grounds in that the author does not provide sufficient evidence. In order to bolster the argument, the author should provide pertinent and perspicuous information on the each city’s absolute and proportional budget on public schools and their innate conditions.