In this article, William Johnson, a special education teacher, describes his experience as both a teach and a student. The author's use of personal accounts builds credibility for his argument but also acts as support for his claims. His claim, in its most explicit form, comes at the end of the article, allowing seemingly separate details to come together in a cohesive manner. He makes a combination of a policy claim and a fact claim:
"Until we provide equal educational resources to all students and teachers, no matter where they come from, we can't say -- with any scientific accuracy -- how well or poorly they're performing. Perhaps if we start the conversation there, things will start making a bit more sense."
What I find strange about this argument is that, in his claim, the author brings up access to educational resources. He did mention in the beginning of the article that budget cuts have made his classrooms bigger and have cut support staff, but other than that he didn't talk about how this affected his teaching or the students learning. The article is really about how current methods of evaluation of both students and teachers don't accurately translate to degree of performance.