Can Someone Grade my Essay? (First attempt; timed)
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20 Aug 2018, 09:19
Hi, this is my first time practicing the essay, and I would like to know where I potentially stand right now. My goal is to make a 5 or a 6.
Prompt:
The following appeared as part of a newspaper editorial:
“Two years ago Nova High School began to use interactive computer instruction in three academic subjects. The school dropout rate declined immediately, and last year’s graduates have reported some impressive achievements in college. In future budgets the school board should use a greater portion of available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum.”
Essay:
This editorial concludes that since Nova High school has supposedly seen improvements after adopting interactive computer instruction in some of its subjects, all schools in the district should also adopt such instruction. However, the arguments used to reach this conclusion are tenuous, at best. The editorial fails to provide specific data about student and graduate improvement, and it incorrectly assumes that the rest of the schools in the district will see similar improvements.
The argument begins by noting that the school dropout rate declined immediately after introducing interactive computer instruction. However, the dropout rate could be affected by a number of factors that may have nothing to do with these classes. The introduction of these classes may not necessarily have cause the dropout rate to decline. It could have simply just happened at the same time. The argument would have been more convincing if a study was conducted to show that students considered at-risk of dropping out chose not to do so when placed in these interactive computer classes. In the case of the graduate that have achieved successes at college, the editorial does not mention whether this is an improvement from the past. For all we know, the top graduates of Nova High School may have always reported impressive achievements in college.
Even if the decline in the dropout rate and the graduates’ achievements were caused by the interactive computer classes, it still does not necessarily mean that the rest of the schools in the district should also adopt interactive computer instruction. Nova High School may be the school located in the poorest part of the district that had mediocre graduates and the highest percentages of students at risk for dropping out. The rest of the schools in the district may already have graduates that are excelling in college and almost all of their students graduating from high school. If this is the case, then spending the school board's money on these classes may have only marginal or no improvements for the students in the rest of these schools.
Had this editorial provided more information on whether Nova High Schools' computer classes actually improved dropout rates and graduate student achievement, I would have been more likely to believe that more computer classes would be useful for this school in the future. I may have also agreed that the rest of the district should also adopt computer instruction if the argument proved that other schools in the district were similar enough to Nova High School that they would also see their student retention and graduation rates improve. However, since this editorial failed to provide any of this information, and thus, has not convinced me that the schools in the district need more computer instruction in their curriculum.