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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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How did you ask the question

"If DeBoer is correct that education doesn't matter, how does he explain the fact that scores were going up before the change in policy?"

after being quoted, 24 hours earlier, DeBoer saying

"Kids do learn at school. You send your kid, he can’t sing the alphabet song, a few days later he’s driving you nuts with it. Sixteen-year-olds learn to drive. We handily acquire skills that didn’t even exist ten years ago. Concerns about the Black-white academic performance gap can sometimes obscure the fact that Black children today handily outperform Black children from decades past"?

You're consistently misinterpreting the statements of people who disagree with you in ways convenient for your arguments, that make their positions seem much more extreme than they really are. Please just ... try to notice when you make a mistake and correct for it in the future?

What are your responses to Freddie DeBoer's arguments on this topic? Education Doesn't Work 2.0, a comprehensive argument that education cannot close academic gaps and Genes Believe in You are blogposts, and the book is The Cult Of Smart (pirated). These aren't about race, which he sort of ignores, but make strong arguments about individual differences in ability, and ones that readily generalize to race.

Look man, you and I have been doing this for years. 10 years this October by my count. What do you think my "engaging charitably" would look even like in this context?

So is your excuse simply that this shit is your nature and no amount of educational efforts can fix you? A bit inconsistent given the argument you advance, innit?