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Public education system

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Public education system

by dv2020 » Tue May 31, 2011 10:13 am
The reforms to improve the quality of public education that have been initiated on the part of suppliers of public education have been insufficient. Therefore, reforms must be demanded by consumers. Parents should be given government vouchers with which to pay for their children's education and should be allowed to choose the schools at which the vouchers will be spent. To attract students, academically underachieving schools will be forced to improve their academic offerings.
The argument assumes that
(A) in selecting schools parents would tend to prefer a reasonable level of academic quality to greater sports opportunities or more convenient location
(B) improvement in the academic offerings of schools will be enforced by the discipline of the job market in which graduating students compete.
(C) There is a single best way to educate students
(D) Children are able to recognize which schools are better and would influence their parents' decisions.
(E) Schools would each improve all of their academic offerings and would not tend to specialize in one particular field to the exclusion of others.
[spoiler]
OA is A[/spoiler]
Last edited by dv2020 on Tue May 31, 2011 11:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by cans » Tue May 31, 2011 10:21 am
IMO C
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by anandanm » Tue May 31, 2011 10:27 am
(A) in selecting schools parents would tend to prefer a reasonable level of academic quality to greater sports opportunities or more convenient location Given statement does not discuss about additional facilities
(B) improvement in the academic offerings of schools will be enforced by the discipline of the job market in which graduating students compete. Assumption is not about Job market, its about quality of academic offerings
(C) There is a single best way to educate students Different way of educating is not mentioned.
(D) Children are able to recognize which schools are better and would influence their parents' decisions. Correct. To attract students These words say that children are able to recognize which school has better offerings
(E) Schools would each improve all of their academic offerings and would not tend to specialize in one particular field to the exclusion of others. Specializing in one field is not part of discussion

Its D
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by newton9 » Tue May 31, 2011 10:33 am
A: current reforms insufficient. Consumers - Parents should be allowed to choose schools at which issued vouchers will be spent.

C: So to attract students, underachieving schools will improve academic offerings.

Argument assumes that, only way to attract students is to improve academic offerings. So the argument assumes that academics have a higher priority.

A) Negate this. What if parents prefer schools in their neighborhood and schools that are good in sports? This weakens/kills the argument that underachieving schools will be forced to improve academics

Will go with A
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by dv2020 » Tue May 31, 2011 11:49 am
In assumption questions we should try to look for any apparent weakness in the argument. Although the argument above looks pretty solid but if we look at the last sentence idea of academically underachieving schools has suddenly come up. Hence we smell some weakness and it needs to be plugged. Answer choice A in selecting schools parents would tend to prefer a reasonable level of academic quality to greater sports opportunities or more convenient location plugs the gap and justifies why academically underachieving schools will be forced to improve their academic offerings.
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by [email protected] » Sat Jun 04, 2011 1:06 am
Well honestly i did not find out the conclusion of the argument and that is why i found D to be correct. But it seems to be wrong. Can anyone help me in understanding the argument...
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by cans » Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:50 pm
[email protected] wrote:Well honestly i did not find out the conclusion of the argument and that is why i found D to be correct. But it seems to be wrong. Can anyone help me in understanding the argument...
Conclusion is: academically underachieving schools will be forced to improve their academic offerings
premise: Parents should be given government vouchers with which to pay for their children's education and should be allowed to choose the schools at which the vouchers will be spent.
argument states that parents will choose school, and thus schools will improve academically offerings.
It assumes that parents will choose school on basis of better academic offerings.
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by chilledlife » Sat Jun 04, 2011 11:30 pm
IMO A.


The reforms to improve the quality of public education that have been initiated on the part of suppliers of public education have been insufficient. Therefore, reforms must be demanded by consumers. Parents should be given government vouchers with which to pay for their children's education and should be allowed to choose the schools at which the vouchers will be spent. To attract students, academically underachieving schools will be forced to improve their academic offerings.

The argument assumes that
(A) in selecting schools parents would tend to prefer a reasonable level of academic quality to greater sports opportunities or more convenient location. Improvement in the academic offering is linked to the parents and the vouchers given to them. So I think statement A ties up the premise of parents being given the vouchers and the conclusion of schools being forced to improve academic offerings. I also like this option because it is ruling out other reasons such as the location of the school and sports. The only criteria for the parent to pick the school is better quality which has been emphasized by this point. So I pick A.
(B) improvement in the academic offerings of schools will be enforced by the discipline of the job market in which graduating students compete. No mention has been made anywhere about the job market in this problem. Out of Scope
(C) There is a single best way to educate students.The problem talks about academic offerings so I think this statement is out of scope.
(D) Children are able to recognize which schools are better and would influence their parents' decisions. The parents will be making the decision, nothing has been mentioned about the role of the children in deciding on the school in this problem so we can safely 'assume' it is out of scope.
(E) Schools would each improve all of their academic offerings and would not tend to specialize in one particular field to the exclusion of others. We do not know this to be true and cannot assume. This is because the question only talks about improving the academic offerings but we do not know if the academic offerings are specific to one field only or overall. It could be either as the question only talks about 'academically underachieving schools', I think this is out of scope.
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