EconTalk | 26 October 2020 | 1h 17m | Listen Later 
| iTunes
Interview with Fredrik deBoer about his book The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice. DeBoer argues that there is little that can be done to change the distribution of educational outcomes. He argues that educational reforms like charter schools and No Child Left Behind are doomed to failure. DeBoer, a self-described Marxist, suggests that society should remove the privilege of educational advantage.
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It would have been entertaining to hear Prof. Roberts and Dr. deBoer clash more on Marxism, but that would likely have generated more heat than light.
A more important thing that was omitted was a discussion of bad schools. Perhaps a “good school” offers little improvement to a good student, but surely if you took that same student and sent her to a classroom where (for instance) she feels physically threatened, she will do much worse. Improving truly bad schools ought to be within our powers.