A fundamental aspect of a solid opinion article is to lay out well-researched and verified facts to form the opinion, not to lay out your opinion and form the facts around it.
An obvious example is championing an unwavering practice of "humanist schools" to develop social workers and teachers instead of people who would become employed in a blue chip corporation by using a "fact" that tech jobs become outsourced in 10-15 years, while no teacher or lawyer or doctor or social worker ever has a change in their career environment (something that is beyond debatable).
Instead, I think sound logic would say that given the following series of facts:
- Education quality in America needs improvement
- Unemployment in the United States is still woefully high
- The unemployment problem is especially prevalent among recent college graduates
- There are numerous open positions at tech companies that can't be filled because the college graduates described above do not meet the qualifications
to form an opinion along the lines of "maybe it's time we encourage children to pursue STEM fields in adolescent years."
I wish I had more time to develop better-versed thoughts, but I have finals to study for in my pursuit of my worthless, soulless-corporation-driven electrical engineering degree.