Analysis of Argument

Explain how logically persuasive you find this argument. In discussing your viewpoint, analyze the argument's line of reasoning and its use of evidence. Also explain what, if anything, would make the argument more valid and convincing or help you to better evaluate its conclusion.

Prompt: "The problem of poorly trained teachers that has plagued the state public school system is bound to become a good deal less serious in the future. The state has initiated comprehensive guidelines that oblige state teachers to complete a number of required credits in education and educational psychology at the graduate level before being certified."

Start Time: 12:45 pm

The writer concludes that the present problem of poorly trained teachers will become less severe in the future because of required coursework in education and educational psychology before certification.

The assumptions that are made in this prompt is that coursework in education and psychology will improve teachers' classroom performance, current teachers haven't already met this standard of classroom training, and bad teachers will either cease teaching or become trained to this new standard. This argument needs to address any evidence that the new required training will improve classroom performance of teachers, that present teachers are bad because they don't have this training, and that present teachers will not be teaching or will be trained will improve.

The assumptions in this prompt fails to describe how the new state intiated training will improve teaching and what future teachers need to do to become certified. Because there are teachers who enter the field with a variety of different education levels, backgrounds and understandings of educational psychology it is impossible to assume that state teachers will even be prepared for graduate level courses in education and educational psychology. In addition, graduate level courses in education and educational psychology would hardly prepare future teachers for the reality of teaching in a classroom.

In the past, there have been shortages of qualified state teachers especially in rural and poor communities. Because schools with a high number of at-risk youth and violence are not equiped to recruit good teachers, teachers who may not be qualified to teach have been implemented into the field without having to acquire certification.

End Time: 1:14 pm