The following is an excerpt from a speech given to the School Board about a change to the curriculum:
"Because the future will be dominated by technology, we must make four years of computer programming mandatory for all high school students. If our students take these classes, they’ll all be able to get high-paying programming jobs and lead fulfilling lives because software engineers and data scientists have the best job prospects and salaries. Therefore, we must educate our students so they can secure these kinds of jobs. Even if they pursue other careers, programming will still benefit them, given that all industries are becoming more technological."
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.
The above speech is about making the current curriculum more technology oriented for high school students wherein the coding classes will be a must in order to complete high school graduation. The argument here is riddled with unwarranted assumptions and a sundry of logical fallacies upon which I will be shedding light.
Firstly, citing the prompt, "If our students take the programming classes, they will lead fulfilling lives and have high paying jobs in the near future". What exactly is a fulfilling life? The answer to this will vary from person to person, and their individual perspective of how one wants to live their life. For some people, fulfilling life would mean, leading a life of happiness with their families, and another group of people may describe it is being healthy, without having any kind of pernicious diseases. For example, if this question was posed to an orphan, he or she might describe a fulfilling life as being providential and ebullient. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that taking up coding classes in high school is what will make these students have such a life.
Secondly, they state that the best job prospects lie in the field of data science and software engineering only. This might change in the future, as no one can predict what might happen. For example, the COVID-19, this behemoth of a virus turned into a pandemic which led to economy plummeting dramatically. During this epidemic, the job opportunities were higher for biotechnologists, pharmacists and scientists in order to discover or create a new drug to treat the COVID-19 patients. Additionally, as the hospitals were overflowing with patients, the doctors, nurses and other hospital staff also had to work overtime. Hence, since future is highly unpredictable, it cannot be claimed that these are the jobs that will be higher paid.
Lastly, these high school students are being coerced to take programming classes for four years. Students particularly in this age, will have a variety of interests which should not be circumscribed, instead they should be encouraged to pursue them. For example, what if a student aspires to become an actor, or a musician or a social worker, these jobs do not require a technical skill set. Therefore, students should be given a choice whether or not they want to take up computer lessons, and should be given options for other extra-curricular activities.
In conclusion, the argument does not hold up when questioned, and does not make strong case that computer programming classes should be made mandatory for high school students.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: coerced Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 5 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 423 350
No. of Characters: 2096 1500
No. of Different Words: 227 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.535 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.955 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.725 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 155 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 108 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 75 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.263 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.129 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.632 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.285 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.523 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.066 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 439, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...fore, students should be given a choice whether or not they want to take up computer lessons, ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, hence, if, lastly, may, second, secondly, so, therefore, for example, in conclusion, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 21.0 12.9520958084 162% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 30.0 28.8173652695 104% => OK
Preposition: 44.0 55.5748502994 79% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 16.3942115768 30% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2177.0 2260.96107784 96% => OK
No of words: 423.0 441.139720559 96% => OK
Chars per words: 5.14657210402 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.53508145475 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8672039608 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 231.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.54609929078 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 654.3 705.55239521 93% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.67365269461 299% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.0301133186 57.8364921388 69% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.578947368 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2631578947 23.324526521 95% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.0 5.70786347227 105% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.329764959275 0.218282227539 151% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0983410237333 0.0743258471296 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.099237891383 0.0701772020484 141% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.195116590151 0.128457276422 152% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0828817241093 0.0628817314937 132% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.0 14.3799401198 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.5979740519 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.65 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 105.0 98.500998004 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.