Education Essay: Are Local School Boards Obsolete?

Week 1: Are Local School Boards Obsolete?
Assignment: Identifying Fallacious Arguments and Rhetorical Ploys
Educational Issue: Are Local School Boards Obsolete?
Educational Expert Position
Yes: Marc Tucker
No: Diane Ravitch
Summary of Author’s Position:
Marc used to be involved in the school governance, and his experiences led him to the conclusion that school boards are in fact, obsolete. Marc believes that most of the faculty and staff, including the board members, are doing remarkable work to ensure a better environment, but the system that is in place is flawed. Marc opposed the idea of a decentralized ministry of education and pointed out that making changes in the current education system is integral in providing a better learning experience for a student.
Rhetorical Fallacies and Ploys Used by the Author:
Quotations and Rhetorical Ploys
Part 1: Quotations
266700000
Part 2: Rhetorical Ploy
1 Marc uses ‘hasty generalization’ and makes a statement based on no evidence. For example, in the first quotation, Marc assumed that teachers would not put up with work that lowered productivity; this statement is logical but has no supporting evidence. Thus we conclude that Marc uses generalization as a rhetorical ploy (Weaver, 2018). Marc’s statement is his personal opinion as is not a concrete stance that could be backed with evidence. Although Marc gave appropriate reasoning, exceptions are always there, and not all teachers work in education for a paycheck.
2 In the second quotation, Marc uses the phrase “would be seen”; this shows that Marc is stereotyping an unknown outcome based on his judgement. Marc is trying to persuade the reader by forcing his biased argum...