"Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability."
An interesting concept - looking forward to reading.

I received an advance copy of THE CULT OF SMART by Fredrik deBoer from St. Martin’s Press, but I did not finish this book, primarily because the point of it is to say that we need to create a more even playing field for students...but I found the writing style and tone to be so pretentious, I'm really not sure who it's written for. So, I didn't really want to finish it. Yes, there are limitations around traditional intelligence levels that vary by individual, but this is not what makes people successful nor worthy of having a good life.

Typically fiction is my go-to genre, so I really wanted to branch out of my comfort zone with this book. However, it just wasn't for me. After only a few pages I caught myself being really frustrated with many of the author's opinions on education. While I am all for differing opinions of my own, I felt like the author's beliefs were practically being shoved down my throat. I tried giving this book a chance, but I couldn't even finish it sadly.

As an educator, I try to read as much as I can about education reform. We know the truth, but no one adapts or wants to change. This was absolutely fascinating. I bought a paper copy for my school.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, St. Martin's Press for an early copy of this book.
The Cult of Smart touches on some realities in our current and historical educational system. The title itself was a fantastic choice, because the truth is, our students are living in a cult of smart. The concerns raised in this book are valid, and sometimes difficult to read as an educator. We would like to think we can change the world, starting one students at a time. What worked for me was the idea that academic potential is largely specific to the child, and no amount of interventions, teacher practice or reforms would make a huge difference in the educational outcome for that child. The fact that intelligence is heritable and sometimes "luck" is on your side is not groundbreaking, but rather it affirms the fact that sometimes all the best practices on Earth, from the best teachers on the planet would not change the outcome for some students. What didn't work for me was I felt it belabored the points that could have been summarized more succinctly.

This is a thought-provoking book that explores issues with our educational system. The author makes the case that there are individual differences when it comes to ability and not all students are going to be able to reach the same academic talent. The author makes some good points and gave me some ideas to think about.

Review ran at National Review Online, August 7, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/the-cult-of-smart-is-worth-the-read/

Reading Fredrik deBoer, honest Marxist and Internet gadfly, is like watching a pitcher on a team you don’t cheer for throw a no-hitter against your crosstown rivals — you’re glad to see them dispatched with alacrity, and there is excellence to admire, even if his ultimate goal is orthogonal to your own.

The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice takes aim at our approach to education before broadening the scope to attack our purported meritocracy, if not the nature of a market-based economy itself. Those in the titular “cult,” he writes, are those who subscribe to the notion “that academic value is the only value, and intelligence the only true measure of human worth. It is pernicious, it is cruel, and it must change.”

DeBoer became Internet-famous for training rhetorical fire on progressives more concerned with enforcing the correct pronouns than advancing actual egalitarianism, as in his classic essay “Planet of Cops.” He is like the estranged cousin at a family reunion who feels no compunction in pointing out the clan’s vanities and hypocrisies — certainly the most fun at the bar, but perhaps not the one who should be named executor of the estate.

To wit, he uses the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal as a jumping-off point for examining the flaws of our presumed meritocracy. DeBoer aptly notes how the rat race of the college admissions process is a perfect example of how the contemporary progressive cloaks self-interest in the guise of moral bromides. But it’s not enough to point out where the left falls short, as Richard Reeves did in “Dream Hoarders.” No, deBoer argues that we must “subvert the very system of meritocratic capitalism our schools are built to serve.”

DeBoer would have us rethink the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of a market-based approach to social status and income. He argues that intelligence is, at least partially, inheritable, and thus that academic aptitude and talent should be treated the same as hair color, height, or other accidents of birth, and not play a significant role in determining our life outcomes. (He takes great pains to distinguish this line of argument of within-group variation from those who find a genetic component between groups.) For deBoer, “Varsity Blues” scandal was a betrayal of meritocracy, or further evidence that true meritocracy has never been tried. It was a ripe example of the undue rewards to being selected on “merit,” however defined, in the first place. He asks, “What could be crueler than an actual meritocracy, a meritocracy fulfilled?”

Well, conservatives can certainly agree that meritocratic good standing has no place in an assessment of moral worth or equal status before the law. Indeed, many conservatives have been arguing for more non-college paths to the middle class for years. And no one has offered a better contemporary critique of meritocracy than conservative essayist Helen Andrews (with a characteristically bold prescription of a new aristocracy in its place). My own preference would be to enlarge the number of spheres of influence individuals can pursue excellence in, breaking up the cultural and economic hegemony of major metropolitan hubs and making it easier to attain meaningful and necessary success at the local or regional scale. But this is a book by a leftist, critiquing the Left — deBoer hardly engages in a meaningful way with conservative critics. It would have been stronger for it.

Likewise, in critiquing the education reform movement of the ’90s and ’00s, he fairly argues that it put too much pressure on teachers to fix problems that stemmed from outside the school environment. Talk of “unleashing the market” and “creative destruction” in education was undoubtedly favored over character formation and empowering civil society. But again, deBoer misses that some of the most strident opposition to interventions like Common Core came from conservative parents who didn’t care about racing to the top so much as making sure local curricula reflected local values.

The economic essentialism of a Marxist analysis leads to painting with too broad a brush. Yes, the college-admissions arms race is awful for those who participate. Yes, social-justice rhetoric is used to excuse progressive self-interest. Yes, an attitude of unchecked materialism is poisonous to the body politic and the cultivation of civic virtue. But advocating systemic reform to somehow counterbalance the flaws found in human nature is misguided. There are policy (and religious and civic) steps we could take to address the dysfunctions of America’s upwardly aspirational class without seeking to free us “from the numbing grind of the capitalist treadmill.”

And while one, perhaps, shouldn’t expect realistic policy solutions from a Marxist, no matter how honest, it is decidedly strange for a book about undermining the college-for-all mentality to propose a version of Bernie Sanders’s free-college proposal as one of its recommended policy solutions (lowering the legal dropout age to twelve, on the other hand, is worth more exploration). The final chapter, which paints a world where want is banished and every man able to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, and philosophize at night, is the stuff of a 1960s faculty lounge.

The honesty of The Cult of Smart is the honesty of a four-seam fastball that clips the outer edge of the plate. DeBoer punctures the emptiness of the type of person who spouts social-justice hashtags while attaining the highest-status collegiate bumper sticker for their SUV. In deBoer’s plain-spoken Marxism there is much to disagree with, but it is the sort of disagreement that leads to greater clarity, and the book is a — if he would not mind me saying so — smart contribution that should shed light on what we value, and how.

Is every child in America receiving the same quality education? Are there some advantages that certain kids have over others? The author really delves into the flaws in our current system. As someone that works in a school, I found that he got a lot of these facts accurate. Whether you agree or disagree with the author on how to improve the current educational system, we can all agree that changes need to be made. This is a book that anyone with children in school or who works in education should read.

I received this ARC earlier this year and slowly consumed it while I finished my teaching credential.

Found myself agreeing with numerous points the author was making, however, none of these points were original/new. Many are against the aged blank slate ideology, many are against pointless “teaching to the test” standardized state testing, many believe IQ is at least partially inheritable as well as academic performance paired with it, etc.

The one thing this “firebrand leftist” will catch sh*t for from contemporary educators is the belief that not all children are academically capable even if given additional help and head starts. There is an attitude in current-day academia that all children are of equal ability if just given the opportunity to excel—this is why much of the lingo has transferred from issues of equality to issues of equity. Many parents and educators alike are aware that different families with different socioeconomic backgrounds end up having different academic success in their children.

The last chapter is just a regurgitation of ho-hum socialism that is currently being co-opted by social liberals like Bernie Sanders, and to some extent, Elizabeth Warren. I’m not a leftist, yet I read the book with an open and honest mind. Despite that, I couldn’t find anything persuasive enough for me to fully embrace his vision. I’m not sure who this education-reform-through-a-Marxist-lens book would truly appeal to as conservatives won’t have it, liberals somewhat agree, and most leftists (progressives and an-coms) are already there. Perhaps the author is really hoping left-of-center liberals that thrive on CNN will change their minds and embrace the Marxist utopia.

Either way, it wasn’t bad, but I won’t need to revisit this book at a later date.

<i>I received an early review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</I>

This is a very good book in many ways. The problem is that it attempts to be good in too many ways, and thereby loses overall coherence. To see this, consider some of what's covered:

-One way to think about its thesis is that it's taking Rawls' point about how even natural ability isn't grounds for differential results since even that is unearned. deBoer wishes to stage a Marxist intervention in contemporary American cultural politics, according to which the Left starts taking "natural ability" seriously, since the massive role of genetics in determining intelligence is now securely established. He's quick to argue that racial and sex-based genetic differences have no evidece - rather he's interested in how ability differs between individuals. Of course institutional racism and classism is real and depresses certain groups' performances, but even if these evils ended, meritocracy would still be fundamentally unfair because of the unmerited distribution of talent.

-There's some needed conceptual criticism about how relative and absolute standards being mixed willy nilly in talk of education. After all, if everyone improved, there would be no relative improvement. And if there's social mobility, some people will have to lose for some people to gain. Clearly there's no easy educational route to equality.

-Along the way, there's an insightful takedown of charter school advocacy (they supposedly game the metrics of success by kicking out low performaing students and closing down low performing charter schools). He also makes the interesting point that perhaps the reason that so many people harp about school reform has more to do with how it's easily controllable, rather than because schools actually much of an effect.

-There's a wealth of data and studies including about how once natural ability is held constant where a person goes to school matters very little, about how coaching matters very little for standarized testing, etc.

-There's some ideas from political philosophy, such as positive vs. negative freedom, and well as Rawls' veil of ignorance.

-The second-last chapter deals with "realistic reforms" (universal childcare and afterschool care, lowering legal dropout age to 12, eliminating charter schools, loosening standards so more people can graduate). The thrust of the argument is that we need to stop considering education a comphrehensive indicator of a person's value. Instead, realizing that school isn't for everyone and that different people have different needs and abilities, you make it work for people as they are, instead of hoping to radically transform each person in a mould that assumes the value of college.

-The last chapter is very unmoored from the rest of the book, where he basically argues for the platform of Barnie Sanders (as a step towards a more Marxist social arrangement). The point I think if that once you stop thinking of the value of a person as tied to how well they do to in the education system, you can value them as they are in all their pluralistic particularities. So healthcare, money, etc., should be guarenteed to them just because they are, rather than because they went to Harvard. Fair enough, but did we need the whole book and all the talk of genetics for this? Clearly enough people can endorse much of this chapter without having to have worked through the rest of it.

And that's the problem - the book is a great read, he's clearly a thoughtful and careful writer, I'm largely in agreement with much of what he says. It's also counter-intuitive enough to not be boring. But by the end, there are just so many threads that it seems a little muddled. Given that what he argues for in the end is the Rawlsian merit position and the Marxist political position, and given that people easily argue for both of those without any of the genetics/education reform talk, why combine these things? It just seems like a strange combination in a single text to me.

Apart from this, I also did have concerns about timeliness. Given the deeply entrenched inequalities in race, class, global distribution, etc., so often legitimated by notions of natural difference, simply saying you want to reclaim a notion like "natural ability" for the left strikes me as deeply insufficient. So while the philosophical argument about the perniciousness about meritocracy is good and important, I don't think enough attention was given to how notions like "natural ability" can be wrested from the far-right, or even kept securely non-racist.

This is a thought-provoking title that takes on commonly held beliefs and turns them upside down. I do not share the author's Marxist beliefs, but found plenty to agree upon in the book.

For years, we've been told that if only certain barriers were removed, all students could become successful. However, that's a lie because of individual genetics.

This is something that deBoer continually cycles back to in this title. That we each have an individual aptitude for academic success that is rooted in our individual genetic code. Since you get your genetics from mom and dad, that means the likelihood you will be successful in school is increased if your parents were.

Tied with this is that blaming teachers for the outcomes measured (e.g. standardized tests) is just plain wrong.

Reading the book had me thinking about how lucky I am for the chance to guide my children's education at home. This way I can customize their learning to fit with their unique abilities.

The Cult of Smart is a thought provoking book about education and the system that claims it is doing what is right by students. Fredrik deBoer makes some interesting points about the system and the focus of outcomes in the US education system. As an educator, I find some truth in this book.

As someone living in a socialist country and watching TV and reading the "media" from time to time I can only say two things about this book and the author's ideas. As someone said sex is not about sex but about power, this as well education isn't about education at all but about power, about societal change.
The author proposes this idea of genetic formation where you are what you get; you're good at math or you're not . I don't know if I necessarily agree with this idea. I am more of a genetics + our home education + our parents home education + what we get in school (not just as classes but as people with interact with, colleagues and teachers). As an example I can offer you mine. I had a horrible math teacher in middle school and I hated math. Then, in high school there was a switch, the teacher was wonderful, kind, explained every little stuff, encouraged people, said jokes etc. Because of him I loved math and I still believe abstract thinking helps you advance in life.

My other problem with this book is its focus on socialism, Marxism and communism. I hope one day a magazine pays an American writer to actually come to former communist countries and talk with people about their lives under it. I want people to read about socialist countries (the book The Almost Nearly Perfect People is a good start) and see their problems in general and their specificity in the field of education.

Finally I think that because of the free market and the free speech and etc did the US attracted "start brains" from poor countries. I don't think, yet at least, that innovation in science, the arts, IT etc can happen in an egalitarian society. However I do believe societal change is the thing that will all countries of the world to a better place so to speak.

Freddie deBoer is a fascinating, provocative leftist writer who is almost always worth reading, and this book is no exception. It's ostensibly focused on the failigngs of our education system, but more broadly, it's a compelling attack on meritocracy as a whole and a decently cogent case for socialism.
Honestly, everyone should read the introduction, which is a great summary of the rest of the book. The short (and unfairly reductive) version of deBoer’s thesis:

<blockquote><b>1.</b> Human intellectual talent is not evenly distributed, much like other human attributes.
<b>2.</b> We should optimize for equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity (since true equality of opportunity is impossible given #1 and in fact, intellectual talent is highly heritable – DeBoer argues convincingly about the fundamental repugnance of basing judgments of moral worth on intelligence or intellectual achievement)
<b>3.</b> Our education system should be reoriented in recognition of #1 and #2 – it’s not an engine of mobility or an equalizer of inequality as it stands, but instead serves to reinforce those
<b>4.</b> We need a broad set of social supports given #1-3 to “raise the floor,” even if it “lowers the ceiling” on what individuals can accumulate or “achieve.” </blockquote>
I’m not sure I’m convinced, but deBoer makes extremely compelling arguments, and if nothing else, made me reconsider some strongly held views of mine about equity and value. In a world of warmed-over takes and nonfiction that just serves to tell the reader what he or she already knows is right, this was extremely refreshing. And generally, the arguments are so clearly stated that it forces readers to engage with their content, not just their form.

So why just four stars? A few main reasons:
<blockquote><b>1.</b> This needed a much more aggressive edit throughout, especially in the last chapter, which packs way, way too many ideas into a single chapter relative to the much-more-focused ones that come earlier. (Also, a couple arguments are repeated in similar formulations even within the chapter, let alone between different ones)
<b>2.</b> The book is uneven. The earliest chapters are strongest, while some of the later ones lose focus. Similarly, some arguments have tons of data and evidence with them, or at least a clear set of logical premises and conclusions; other feel like ungrounded supposition.
<b>3.</b> There are some challenges with inconsistent tone. deBoer is an extremely clear writer, which is great most of the time, and the book bills itself as a “passionate, voice-driven manifesto” – fair enough. But at times, it gets so conversational as to feel like an extended blog post printed out rather than something that has been refined into a book form. </blockquote>

For all its flaws, the Cult of Smart is well worth a read, and I think almost everyone should read at least the intro. You won’t necessarily come away convinced, but you will be intellectually richer for having grappled with it. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC!

A lot of information that I have read before. The plus is it is all in one place here the downside is there was not a lot new.

This thought provoking book asks deep, transformational questions about the American educational system and whether it truly serves all students. The thesis of the book is that not everyone is "smart," and that's okay. Intelligence is inherited, and no matter how much particular students try to make good grades, they will still come up short. The book includes an excellent history of recent American educational initiatives - useful to those of us too young to remember them or who didn't have children in public schools in the late twentieth century.

As a mother of a dyslexic child who struggles with school (but who is nonetheless quite "smart" when it comes to non-academic endeavors), this book resonated with me. I agreed with most of his criticisms of the current system. I really wished the author had spent more time on possible solutions to the problems, however. There's a huge need for more vocational education and job training, along with services for children and teens with learning disabilities. I would have liked more content on these needs.

Instead, the author bent over backwards to assure us of his liberal credentials and spent the last part of the book on Marxism. I think if he had stuck to reforms of the educational system, he would have been more likely to get consensus - not to mention readers - from those of more moderate and even conservative leanings.

The basic thrust of The Cult of Smart is that we are, as a society, unwilling to admit that people cannot reach the same echelons of intelligence through good education and sheer grit. People are just different, and we already acknowledge this in other spaces, such as athletic ability. The author repeatedly emphasizes that this is not based on race.

As a consequence of this, we put most of our blame on already beleaguered public school systems and teachers, which doesn't help anyone but wastes billions of dollars and causes endless frustration through additional testing, etc. And we never seem to learn. But "no educational miracle is coming," and there's "no technology that will save our schools, no neoliberal reform that will raise of children out of the grips of poverty, no new model that will suddenly turn struggling students into flourishing ones."

I think there are some really powerful ideas here. Here are some of my favorites:
-We focus our educational reform efforts like someone looking for keys under a street light-- because our political levers most easily impact teachers and public schools, that's what we tend to fiddle with instead of serious attempts to address root causes.
-"There is no conflict in calling for political and social equality while denying that everyone is equal in ability."
-We tend to think of diplomas of having value in and of themselves rather than as a symbol of learning. As deBoer puts it so well, "Diplomas have themselves been confused with the educational benefits that they are supposed to signal."
-Degrees are a relative advantage rather than an absolute one-- the more people who have them, the less valuable they are.
-We should consider loosening standards. While abstract mathematics are critical for human development, not everyone has to know them for a productive and happy life.

The author makes no secret of his Marxism, and I think this outlook uniquely equips him to make some astute points about our current society. For example, in the ninth chapter, he remarks that "in contemporary society, we have more ways to be a loser than to be a winner" and he's certainly right. However, I think the last quarter of the book, and particularly the concluding vision of a Marxist utopia, is going to alienate a fair number of otherwise sympathetic readers. I say this as someone who is also pretty far left.

My other big objection is that I didn't see mention of the benefit of this white lie about everyone being equal in intellectual potential: there are so many socioeconomic and other barriers to success that could be addressed first, and acknowledging that people just aren't equal in this space could make it really easy to justify not taking action at all.

I'm rating this book 4 stars because, while I didn't agree with everything in it, I really enjoyed engaging with the ideas, and I left with a long list of other books and other resources to read. I hope that that others don't write the book off simply because of its Marxist leanings and it becomes an integral part of discussions surrounding educational reform.

If you like this book, or like the idea of it, you may also enjoy Paul Tough's The Years that Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us.