"Last year, Bridewell High School in city introduced ' Pursue Your Spo

The following appeared in newspaper column,
"Last year, Bridewell High School in city introduced ' Pursue Your Sport Program ' . The impact was immediate as the drop out rate at the school reduced and the students took fewer leaves. the initiative also had a positive impact as multiple students figured among top 50 in city wide list of meritorious students. The program clearly led to a greater interest in education, improved health, and enhanced academic performance of students. Hence, Bridewell must further enhance the students' involvement in sports in the coming years."


SOLUTION


The aforementioned argument, at first glace seems to be reasonable and fairly concluded. However, on further detailed examination, the claims made by the argument appear to be based on a number of questionable assumptions and untenable line of reasoning. It starts with stating the ' Pursue Your Sport ' program implemented by Bridgewell High School in the previous year. Following this, the argument states numerous positive changes that were seen the students of the school, which by logic, may or may not be the effects of the implemented program. However, the argument further goes on to conclude that because students seemed to be more interested in studies and that their health improved, the school must further enhance the applicability of such program. In doing so, nevertheless, the argument misses some key issues, which need attention.

Firstly, the argument creates an unsubstantiated causal relationship between the dropout rate at school and the impact created by the Sports Program. It misses out on the other important factors that could have contributed or entirely led to the decreased drop out rate. For instance, an attendance mandate implemented by the school or marks reduction for not attending school, could have been huge factors creating positive change.

Secondly, the argument takes for granted that the students who excelled at or improved their performance in academics also participated in the program. What if these two were completely distinct set of students. If so, the argument no longer remains reasonable. The argument in claiming that Bridgewell High School must continue to enhance the students' involvement in sports wrongly assumes that there was no other factor than the program that could have led to the improvement in overall performance of the students in the school.

Thirdly, the argument creates a loophole by claiming that multiple students were in the top 50 meritorious students across the city. The argument here is weak in that there is a possibility that the students of Bridgewell High School were positioned in the lower most ranks among the top 50 and more so that the other schools had more students on an average in the top 50.

This case could have been more well reasoned had there been sufficient data justifying the correlation between the impact of the ' Pursue Your Sport ' program and the increase in interests in education or improved health. The argument also lacks data regarding the beneficiaries point of view and thus weakens the extreme claim that "clearly" it was the program that prompted students to study more.

Were all the key issues mentioned above addressed, the argument would have been sound and persuasive. But as of now, it remains unconvincing and flawed.


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