"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 the available funds to buy more computers, and all schools in the district should adopt interactive computer instruction throughout the curriculum." Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.

In a newspaper editorial, an argument appeared advocating for the use of interactive computers based on the case of Nova High School. This argument is substantially flawed. The argument presents inconclusive information, offers dubious support for the allegations made and from this draws unreasonably conclusions.

The argument is based on a decline in the dropout rate, which it fails to properly measure and clarify if it's a substantial one. It also cites impressive achievements in college from last year's graduates, yet fails to identify these. A conclusion can't be drawn whether these are objectively impressive.

The author does not mention on which academic subjects the interactive computers have been used and what's the correlation between these subjects and the dropout rates in the school. The argument proceeds to demand the allocation of a greater portion of the budget to the purchase of more of the aforementioned, without stating how much of a decline could be expected from an increase on the number of available computers.

Lastly, it encourages all schools in the district to adopt interactive computers, assuming all of them have similar characteristics on their student population, and that they would be equally benefitted with this initiative.

This argument is not based on proper evidence, and fails to convey how much of a benefit could be expected from an increase in the use of interactive computers.