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In general, I like Freddie DeBoer's takes on education. There's a lot of poor thinking about how if only... teachers were better paid, or worse paid; students were tested more, or tested less; unions were weaker, or stronger -- then things would be better. Freddie's there to point out that American public education is exactly what one would expect, given that it is full of Americans.
Enter his newest essay. American schools are exactly what you would expect, given their demographics, there isn't much to be done about that, the teachers and systems are exactly what they need to be, given the constraints they're under, and so... well off parents are racist for preferring schools that are allowed to expel the very lowest performing children.
Wait, what?
My main impression is that when he hears "bad kids," he's somehow thinking of a well meaning black kid who uses AAVE and wants to play sports ball more than learn math, but is in general pretty normal. And in a lot of classrooms it does. But sometimes, in some classrooms, it means a kid freaks out, smashes the other kids' stuff, sometimes hits the other kids, screeches, thrashes around on the floor, and then when they eventually leave, they come back five minutes later with candy in their mouth. None of the other kids are allowed to eat candy in that classroom even if they have it. It doesn't matter, the teacher just mutters to finish the candy quickly and get on with it.
Maybe it's an overrepresented dynamic in schools I've observed, but in addition to outlier events like knife fights, if a kid has the misfortune to be assigned an all day elementary class with a "disregulated" classmate or two, there's literally nothing to do about it, other than changing schools. This is a Problem, actually. It is a Problem with the laws and court decisions, not necessarily individual decisions on a school or even district level, but Freddie is simply wrong in how he talks about the "hardest to educate students." Education Realist was more on track when he wrote about the topic a couple of years ago.
This isn't the same disregulation most parents are pulling their kids out for, since they're in segregated classrooms, but is in fact the "hardest to educate students" that public schools are dealing with. As I recall Freddie did teach actual school at one point, but it looks like he was teaching high school composition, and for all his research, still underplays what the bottom of even normal suburban public schools are like.
The left-wing worldview does not accept the imposition of order, not even at the classroom level. Order is force, force is violence, and violence by authority is unacceptable in any and all cases. Keeping order in the classroom so poor kids could learn is not even considered as an option. Freddie can be right about any number of inconsequential facts, but it won't matter because he cannot bring himself to sanction a smack on the ass to a rambunctious child.
The left would rather have violent schools in which children kill each other regularly than impose discipline. They'd rather have drug addicts shitting in their vaunted public transport than do anything to stop it. They'd rather people get stabbed to death by psychotics with ten thousand felony convictions than be so mean as to snatch them up and jail them.
Buddy, how many times do we have to tell you to stop doing this?
When you post these beer can boo-thoughts, you start spewing transparent nonsense and anger. There is a form of argument in which "The left would rather have violent schools in which children kill each other regularly than impose discipline" could be expressed as the predictable outcome of their revealed preferences, but that would be too much work for you, so you just say crap like this, which no leftist would agree with. So is every leftist literally in favor of violent schools in which children kill each other, and they are all lying if they say they aren't? Maybe you actually believe that is the case, but if you do, you need to bring some pretty solid evidence for such an inflammatory claim.
Here is your rubric: if you are claiming every (or almost every) member of group X believes something, and you know damn well they would all say "No we don't," then that's a clue that you are arguing something that is, at best, contested and you can't just assert it because you like talking about how terrible group X is. (I'd give you a few "shoe on the other foot" tests but you know them, we both know what they look like, you'd probably just brush them aside.)
Really and truly, I want you argue better and stop doing this. Not because I am a tender-hearted lefty who is offended that you probably lump me in with the people who want stabbed children and shitting on buses, but because there is a reason we have rules against naked culture warring and boo outgrouping. It degrades the discourse. It contributes nothing of value, sheds no light, explains nothing. It's just tribal signaling. You will get upvotes from people thinking "YEAH!!! You tell 'em! Fuck leftists!" and maybe that gives you a dopamine hit, but no one (I hope) really wants the board to become the kind of place where that's all people are doing (and if we allow it, that's all people will do).
Stop this.
I'm holding off on banning you because like most of your posts of this nature, it's just a minor instance of boo-lighting by itself, and we really don't want to ban someone who's a long-time member since the olden days, who often does write things of value. But you are now in that "How often do we let him keep getting away with this?" zone.
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