Astral Codex Ten

DeBoer

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DeBoer

Article

DeBoer is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between February 18, 2021 and February 18, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “DeBoer doesn’t think there’s an answer within the existing system”; “So DeBoer describes how early readers of his book were scandalized”; “DeBoer thinks the deification of school-achievement-compatible intelligence as highest good”. It most often appears alongside Freddie, Freddie DeBoer, Montessori.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: February 18, 2021
  • Last seen: February 18, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: The Cult Of Smart
February 18, 2021 · Original source
Oscar Wilde supposedly said George Bernard Shaw "has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends". Socialist blogger Freddie DeBoer is the opposite: few allies, but deeply respected by his enemies. I disagree with him about everything, so naturally I am a big fan of his work - which meant I was happy to read his latest book, The Cult Of Smart.
Inline links: The Cult Of Smart
DeBoer starts with the standard narrative of The Failing State Of American Education. Students aren't learning. The country is falling behind. Only tough no-excuses policies, standardization, and innovative reforms like charter schools can save it, as shown by their stellar performance improving test scores and graduation rates.
But then how do education reform efforts and charters produce such dramatic improvements? DeBoer's answer: by lying. Programs like Common Core and No Child Left Behind take credit for radically improving American education. But DeBoer shows they cook the books: most graduation rates have been improved by lowering standards for graduation; most test score improvements have come from warehousing bad students somewhere they don't take the tests. When charter schools have excelled, it's usually been by only accepting the easiest students (they’re not allowed to do this openly, but have ways to do it covertly), then attributing their great test scores to novel teaching methods. Most of this has been a colossal fraud, and the losers have been regular public school teachers, who get accused of laziness and inadequacy for failing to match the impressive-but-fake improvements of charter schools or "reformed" districts.
Inline links: have ways
Highlights From The Comments On Cult Of Smart
February 18, 2021 · Original source
DeBoer argued that charter schools succeed through selection effects: they only take the best students. Several commenters pointed out this was illegal. It is, but they’ve found loopholes. Here's Alexander H:
Inline links: Alexander H
And Freddie DeBoer himself shows up to say:
Many people took issue with how I used "meritocracy" - see eg gbear605's comment here. Most of these converged on the idea that meritocracy can mean either (1) "high-status jobs like 'surgeon' go to the most qualified applicant" or (2) "jobs for smarter people pay better than jobs for less smart people, and the smarter people deserve the extra pay because of merit". I definitely support 1, and I haven't seen anything to suggest DeBoer doesn't either (though I think there are real people who oppose this, and that it's a common focus of meritocracy debates - see eg the move to switch magnet schools from high-scorers to lottery-assignment). DeBoer is complaining about (2). I'm a bit annoyed that people use the same word for (1) and (2), since I think (1) is trivially good and (2) is more complicated and you can do a lot of mischief by equivocating them. I wish people would just use "income inequality" for (2) and then we can debate whether income inequality is good or bad. But I understand people are trying to talk about some specific purported justification for income inequality separate from the overall concept and that getting them to abandon the term will be a hard sell.
Inline links: eg gbear605's comment here