American schools are fine, says Freddie deBoer

The first thing you need to know about Freddie deBoer, the enfant terrible of Substack, is that he’s actually quite friendly in person — or at least he was to me when I had the chance to interview him.

If deBoer’s name sounds familiar, there’s a reason for that. He’s got a very popular Substack. He is eloquent and vulnerable on many topics, including mental health and masculinity. He is frequently and fascinatingly wrong on education, at least according to me. He once took great exception to a piece I’d asked him to write then killed.

Watch above or on YouTube.

Listen on Spotify or Apple.

The occasion for our late-June conversation was No, American schools aren’t failing, deBoer’s recent Boston Globe oped arguing that schools are generally doing much better than we think they are — with the exception of communities that are so marginalized that improving schools will not alone do much to help.

“Educational outcomes are dominantly the product of on the group level, socioeconomic and cultural factors that schools and teachers can’t control — and on the individual level, individual talent differences between individual students that schools and teachers can’t control.”

On the topic of media coverage, deBoer’s main complaint is what he describes as liberal incoherence about what schools are supposed to accomplish.

“The New York Times is not what I would call a staunchly anti-union or or pro-firing sort of place, but they exemplify a certain kind of incoherence,” says deBoer. ‘The Times will talk about like ‘better’ or ‘worse’ schools, but sometimes they think that the best students should go to the best schools, and sometimes the worst students should go to the worst schools.”

You can subscribe to Freddie’s Substack here. You can read about his forthcoming book here.

Previously from The Grade

Journalism should help debunk the education myth it created (Jim Shelton)