How the System is Stacked Against Dyslexic Kids

An article about our education system and how we might want to change it by journalist David Brooks has been making the rounds and popping up with reactions by various people. And so we wanted to do our own reaction today from the perspective of being dyslexic and neurodiversity.

Hey, everyone, we're Nick and Sonja, and this is Dyslexia Journey. And today we wanted to respond to an article that came out in December, this December of 2024, in The Atlantic by journalist David Brooks, where he really took an in-depth look and critique, I would say, of our educational system, in particular, the way in which college admissions works and how that funnels into the system of careers and then how that affects our educational system for students.

Students all the way up through high school as well. So really wanted to talk about that because he really suggests some fundamental changes. So we're going to sort of talk about what's in the article, but we also wanted to, you know, talk about sort of each of his points and also his ideas more generally for how things should change from the perspective, which, you know, he doesn't cover specifically of being dyslexic and or kind of neurodiversity in general, too.

So we just wanted to make a few extra points there, too. But it's really a thought provoking idea, right, to to really try to fundamentally make some changes. Yeah. So the title of the article is How the Ivy League Broke America, and we'll put a link to it in the show notes. And just to note, there is a paywall. It's The Atlantic, but you can sign up for a one month free trial if you do not have a subscription and really want to read just this article.

Right. Yeah. So I think to start with, we'd like to give you sort of a sense of where he's coming from in the article. And so we'd like to read a few quotes just from toward the beginning of the article. So what he says is, quote, Today, even middle school students have been so thoroughly assessed that they know whether the adults have deemed them smart or not. The good test takers get funneled into the meritocratic pressure cooker.

The bad test takers learn by about age nine or ten that society does not value them the same way. Parentheses. Too often, this eventually leads them to simply check out from school and society. Yeah. And a couple of points, just a couple of things to note there. Like you said, meritocratic system. So he's talking, he talks about this a lot, like the meritocracy. And so he even gives some historical perspective at the beginning of, of the article, which I thought was interesting because, you know, he's not saying it was initially a bad idea to have this meritocracy.

The idea being intelligence, you know, that we can try to like pick people based on merit rather than it had often been just like wealthy families before who would be the ones who would get the higher, maybe go to the higher schools and then colleges. And then also, you know, have the better careers. So the idea was to sort of, in a way, like make it more populist, you know, and like, like spread that around more and make it more fair based on meritocracy originally as things changed.

And so that's why he's addressing the meritocracy. But he's saying that there's problems with it the way we do it. Exactly. And so this is, really connects to dyslexia in a very, kind of immediate and, and obvious way to us who are thinking about dyslexia all the time. this, just to be clear, learning differences was not the focus of David Brooks's article. Right. he doesn't actually mention dyslexia or learning differences in the article itself, but I think to anyone with a dyslexic kid in their life or a dyslexic adult reading this is going to immediately think about how, you know, even the quote that I just read about how, you know, the good test takers get funneled into the pressure cooker, the bad test takers learn that society does not value them the same way.

I think that's so true, especially for people with learning differences, like dyslexia who, are generally and not to, obviously say categorically, but generally not great at standardized tests kind of out of the box. Right. So of course, when we heard about it, I mean, it's interesting to us anyway. I mean, I've, we've always sort of questioned the meritocracy actually full disclosure, having come from, we both went to Stanford. So having come from sort of that system, you know, and succeeded in ourselves, we also have kind of always questioned it anyway.

And so it was interesting to us anyway, but I think immediately it pulled us for the, for the ways we could address it. Yeah, exactly. With regard to just being dyslexic. Yeah. And then one other point about that quote is that one kind of consistent thesis running through his article is that, the, the college admissions, like the sort of the elite college admissions has shaped the entire educational system in the U S even down to elementary school.

Right. So that's why he's talking about kids as young as nine and 10. Which I think people, you know, we'll talk about in popular culture, like fairly often. And I think that's known that like people trying to get into top colleges, it's like, are they trying to get their kid into, you know, an academic preschool? You know, like we talk about that sometimes. let me read one more quote here to give you this general sense.

And then we're going to dive into his specific points. So this is another quote teachers can't teach what they love because the system is built around teaching to standardized tests. Students can't focus on the academic subjects they're passionate about because the gods of the grade point average demands that they get straight A's even being a well-rounded kid with multiple interests can be self-defeating because admissions officers are seeking the proverbial spiky kids.

The ones who stand out for having cultivated some highly distinct skill or identity. All of this militates against a childhood full of curiosity and exploration. And so that just is like how he's talking about it affecting the educational system being a problem. Right. And so this is a problem for all kids. But as we've talked about a lot on this show, I mean, really, it's true for all kids that, that, you really can't learn unless you are able to have some interest in the subject.

And especially true, for dyslexic kids who get so easily exhausted by the mental effort required to focus and things like that. it's just so much more effective for them to learn when they have a genuine interest in the subject. And so this, this focus, in our educational system, that's entirely non-student directed, for the most part, I guess, is really, makes it really hard for dyslexic kids. It's like, it's sort of stacked against them from the beginning, that the system is, is, is really, all built around this intense competition to get into these top schools.

And Annette Miller really makes it even more difficult for dyslexic kids. Right, right. Yeah. So that's kind of our, our underlying thesis as we're going into this, or how it dovetails with what he's saying. and so now we're going to get into six specific problems. He cites actually only four of them though, because, we're going to just address the ones that do really more directly have to do with the educational system.

he has a couple others that are more about like societal problems being caused by, by this whole system as well. And we don't want, we would be here forever if we address all of it, cause it's a very in-depth analysis. so we're just going to sort of take his quote, one quote from each of his points, four of the points about the problems with what's happening now with our meritocratic system. and, and then just, you know, say a little more about how we see that, having to do with being dyslexic.

And, and then I should say after the problems, he, we're going to address what he thinks of as a solution and how, what we think of that. So, okay. So the first one here of the four, we're going to address of Brooks's six specific problems. Say that 10 times fast, with our meritocratic system is that the system overwrites intelligence. So here's the quote. The bottom line is that if you give somebody a standardized test, when they're 13 or 18, you will learn something important about them, but not necessarily whether they will flourish in life nor necessarily whether they will contribute usefully to society's greater good.

Yeah. And so that's, I mean, that's a great point just on its own, right? Like one test when you're 15 or whatever, is not a great indicator of many, many things. It's an indicator of one thing, which is how good you are at taking tests. Right. Which maybe has some other implications, but is that really a full enough picture to say, right. This is how, how much that's going to matter and what does mattering mean?

And I mean, you can take that up. Exactly. But, thinking of it with regard to learning differences or actually even, even thinking of it just in general, I would argue that these standardized tests are not even a great measure of intelligence. And that is especially true when you think about people with dyslexia, who we have discussed many times in this show, people with dyslexia have the same bell curve of, of intelligence as, as, the general population.

but they aren't necessarily the best at taking standardized tests, especially time pressured tests. Right. So, so layering in, neurodiversity, maybe more generally, but dyslexians specifically, I guess what we're adding to that is that is the intelligence tests aren't necessarily, oh, is it a measure of intelligence? Right. So, right. And so, you're going to overlook if that's your only measure of kind of who gets to be in the elite schools and so on.

And, if that's your only measure, you're going to overlook a lot of very intelligent people who just aren't great at standardized tests. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. All right. All right. So number two, or Brooks's second point is that, success in school is not the same thing as success in life. And so quote from the article quote, but school is not like the rest of life. Success in school is about jumping through the hoops that adults put in front of you.

Success in life can involve charting your own course. very true for everyone. again, for people with dyslexia, particularly, there's a lot of other, kind of out of the box thinking and holistic thinking and things like that, that are not measured effectively in schools. Right. But that provide great value in the real world. Right. Right. And I'll just add one more point, which is that sometimes a helpful thing for success in life is the challenge.

I mean, you know, it doesn't always work for everybody. Sometimes people do get defeated, you know, if they're not getting the proper accommodations and whatnot. But we've talked about this before, that sometimes the challenge of the system can actually like be a useful skill for life. But of course, that's not like how we should intend it. We shouldn't intend it. Like let's set up roadblocks so someone can develop resilience. It can't work quite like that.

Right. So something to keep in mind, I'm just like a general point for those of you with dyslexic kids in your life, like school is not life. Like that is a great point to keep in mind. And this system, as Brooks makes this point quite eloquently was set up really for one thing, which is to select for people to go to elite schools. And so if you're just like a kid is not do quote doing well in school, like that's the system's fault, not your kid's fault.

And that's, but that's really important to keep in mind, bigger picture. And it can really be easy to fall into the trap that it is, if not the same, it's closer to being the same because of the fact that we are in this time period where this is the system, the meritocratic system, meritocratic system. And so we're all within that. So it's very easy to fall into that trap. Yes. So the third point that Brooks makes about our meritocratic system and the problem, specifically another problem with it is that the game is rigged.

That's a direct short and sweet quote from him. and here's another one. The meritocracy was supposed to sort people by innate ability, but what it really does is sort people according to how rich their parents are. So are we really as far away from that original idea? I mean, we're away from the original idea, I guess, because it wasn't as much question that people, you know, should sort of have this hereditary right or wealth right to these things.

But fundamentally, and with how things are working, is it really as far away from them as it originally was? Right. So, so setting aside learning differences for a second. I mean, we all, I think, are familiar with the fact that one can pay for private SAT prep classes. One can, pay for private tutors. One can hire, people to help with college applications, and so on. If your child goes to a private high school, you're generally going to get a lot more hands-on help with, college applications and the essays and, and, things like that.

Right. now adding in dyslexia, as we've discussed on the show, many times, there are extra costs associated with just, just helping dyslexic kids remediate and get to the level where they can mainstream in regular schools. So starting with even the assessment, as we've discussed many times, and many of our guests have said that the schools don't generally hate to generalize, but the schools, I will anyways, the schools generally don't do a great job of diagnosing every kid with dyslexia.

And so, in our case, we paid for an outside assessment that was, in the thousands of dollars. and, then a lot of people feel like they need to hire private tutors to get their dyslexic kid up to kind of up to, the level where they can be mainstream because the public schools just aren't providing the support they need. And so, this is, this is not a meritocracy. Like when you have to spend thousands of dollars to, help your kid in school, like that is no longer a meritocracy.

That is rewarding the people who have the money that to spend on that. Right. And that's true in general. Absolutely true with people spending more time to, you know, to actually study for and try to practice taking something like the SAT, in general, but then it's going to be that much more true for dyslexic kids who need extra help and extra tutor. They're more likely to more likely to need that. Right.

So, okay. So we technically are skipping four and six of his six points. but our number four, his number five is quote, the meritocracy has damaged the psyches of the American elite. So when he says American elite, he's talking about the people who sort of have reached the pinnacle of this meritocracy meritocratic system. and another quote at the core of the game is the assumption that the essence of life fulfillment is career success.

So he's taking it pretty philosophical, getting more philosophical here about what success actually means. The system has become so instrumentalized. How can this help me succeed? That deeper questions about meaning or purpose are off the table. Questions like, how do I become a generous human being? How do I lead a life of meaning? How do I build good character? And so, of course, that gives us a lot to think about in general, but with regard to neurodiversity, you know, more generally and including being dyslexic.

You know, a lot of what we talk about in this show is other kinds of critical thinking skills or holistic thinking or creative thinking, all of which, you know, aren't really being included in terms of, not only successful learning, but a successful life and how. Yeah. So the traditional measure of success doesn't necessarily on its surface reward holistic thinking, out of the box thinking, et cetera. I mean, we, we, we believe that those skills, are valuable and can help people to traditional success.

but that's not what our school system emphasizes rewards or selects for. Although I think he would argue, and I agree that even sort of some, some of our measures of traditional success, like for example, we've talked about before here, that entrepreneurs often have taken very different paths. Right. Right. And, and they often are displaying some of these other things that we're talking about, thinking outside the box and creative thinking. So he, I think he's all, he's, it's a pretty big broad point, I guess here, but he, I think he's also arguing that, that, that like, even some things we think of as like successful or as successful people.

yeah, that, that, that, that's interesting, so a couple other points that we thought of, that are kind of some of the, the problems, with the system that are specific or I guess problems that this system, that arise that make it harder for dyslexic kids. one is that, using accommodations because it's such an intensive competitive environment to get into these elite schools that using accommodations like extra time, is perceived by many people as cheating.

as, as, like gaming the system in order to get an unfair advantage in order to get into school, to college. Right. Right. So it's, it has a more of a tendency for people to be suspicious of that because the whole system overall is so oriented in that way and like competitive. And right. Yeah. Right. So, we obviously believe that dyslexic kids need these accommodations. systemically it would be great if we'd ever had time to test and it wasn't so competitive.

so I think since we're this, this particular episode is, is talking about the system as a whole, you know, it's important to make that point, but it does make it, I think, more challenging for dyslexic kids, to get the accommodations that they need. Yeah, exactly. And, and so, and so another point that we wanted to make about a problem with the system is that teachers and schools have an incentive to cater more to one might say, sort of the top, the people at the top of like, who seem like they're at the top already and are going to be funneled into that meritocratic system, and have less incentive to help those who are below.

So, I mean, I think you can make an, I will, I will add in here, you could, you could argue, and then I have a counter argument to myself. you could argue that some of these systems, which people don't like either necessarily teachers, but that try to look at like test scores of everyone and then like have teacher pay or something based on that or bonuses. Those, I guess, would be trying to address maybe the people more at the bottom as well.

But, I mean, there's obvious, there's other problems with that that we won't go into here, but, but I think overall, like in terms of how, you know, schools are, are like, I don't know, like a lot of just how schools are thought of by colleges even because colleges sometimes have certain schools that they like, like to extra look for students from. And there's all this other stuff going on like that. there's definitely a lot of emphasis towards resources going to those students.

and here's one quote for you. in one survey, 87% of admissions officers and high school college counselors said the U.S. news rankings for schools to take measures that are quote, within the quote, counterproductive to their educational mission. that was another quote from the Brooks article. and so that is really the feeling is that there is that push towards resources. I mean, it's not that you wouldn't necessarily devote resources to the students, of course, but it's more like that emphasis being placed on it is like about the marriage credit system overall.

It's not like what's, you know, literally best for these kids. Yeah, and this is why I, I think that systemically there's not a lot of incentive to identify dyslexia, identify dyslexia in the student population. Right, right. All right. So those were our two sort of other points about what is wrong with the meritocratic system that we're in and how it affects our educational system. So let's get into what Brooks talks about, about what we can do about it and our response to that.

Brooks' solution, as captured in one sentence that we pulled from his article is quote, the challenge is not to end the meritocracy is to humanize and improve it. and we were going to dig into both parts of that as we go here. Right. and then, another quote, he says quote, but the quote, non-cognitive skills can be more important than cognitive ones. Having a fast mental processor upstairs is great, but other traits may do more to determine how much you're going to contribute to society.

Do you try hard? Can you build relationships? Are you curious? Are you trustworthy? How do you perform under pressure? end quote. And so that, those are great rhetorical questions that, I think, again, those of you with a dyslexic kid in your life can appreciate how, a lot of these traits like curiosity and trying hard and trustworthiness are very undervalued in school. but traits that some of our dyslexic kids, are very lucky to have.

Right. Yeah. And I mean, I would say, you know, it's just to nuance it a little, it's not that it's not valued at all in school. Right. It's, but it's not the focus. It's definitely not the focus. Right. Brooks's point here is valid for all kids. it just, it's, it strikes us that it really affects dyslexic kids even, even stronger. Right. Right. And so then he does have four, four points that he thinks should replace intelligence as the measure that he suggests.

And he goes into, if you do look at the article, he goes into a little bit why each of these is important, which we won't like go into in detail here. But the four that he talks about are curiosity, a sense of drive and mission, social intelligence, and agility, which, quote, is forecasting how complex situations will be. Play out and quote, people with agility can switch among mindsets and riff through alternative perspectives until they find the one that best applies to a given situation.

So basically it's around making judgments and sort of a flexibility around that being able to switch course, for example. Well, and also I would say, you know, we often talk about out of the box thinking and creative thinking, holistic thinking, right? Like I think the, the ability to, kind of envision multiple possibilities and multiple way things can go is something that, in general, dyslexic people are very good at. Yeah, so I think, yeah, so I think, I think some of that holistic thinking and, and, mental flexibility probably would fall under his category of agility here.

Yeah, definitely. but the other, the other, three points seem, you know, like not, not every dyslexic kid is great at social intelligence. but the, but some are, and, the other one's curiosity, and what was the fourth one? the fourth one is agility. Oh, sorry. The second one is sense of drive and mission. Yeah. yeah, those are great. Those are all great points. and I think, again, this would, you know, it's never going to be easy for dyslexic kids, but focus on measures like this rather than just intelligence as measured by students.

standardized tests would go some ways towards leveling the playing field for people with dyslexia and other learning differences. Yeah. So, so I think that one important point, which I, I doubt Brooks would disagree with would be, we could expand even more these lists, right. Of what are the important traits? and like, what does everybody have to all have all of them? Can it be some combination? That kind of thing. which kind of leads to my one thing that's sort of a pushback, but you know, it's maybe just more of a, an expansion of what, what he was saying.

I guess the only part that's the pushback is that he really takes a hard line on that, that, we have to have a meritocracy. That's just how, what happens naturally that hierarchies are created. And I'm not, I don't actually disagree with that. but I guess my thought is that, while that might be true, that things sort of settle out hierarchically, does it still have to be that there's just this one system?

Like, what if we, what if it was more heterogeneous than that? Like, what if it's like, there's the, maybe it does get a little bit hierarchical within, you know, people who are more in the social intelligence realm or like, could it be multiple sort of different points or combinations of, of points of what people's skill is? There's multiple sort of like hierarchical things within that so that it's not just this one system.

Right. That's a really good point. I think he's, cause he does talk about, I think in a sense, broadening the meritocracy, but, I think your point about, we could consider almost, almost multiple meritocracies. Right, which then, you know, just provides a lot more diversity and, you know, I think could be much more creative for society and for what those, like, maybe there's multiple different kinds of success and multiple different things that are all contributing to society in different ways.

Right. so yeah, so, so that's what I would say with that. And then, and one more point I wanted to make about, you know, like if you have to have all of those qualities or, you know, just one or how that all looks and can it be, you know, sort of more diverse or expanded than that, really is inspired by our interview with Ed Thompson, where he was really talking about the workplace, neurodiversity in the workplace.

and I was, and, you know, he spoke a lot about the benefits of, of having an autistic employee and like what they can do. and so it was just reminding me of that because then when I came across, you know, being sort of a social emotional smarts or whatever, I, I was thinking like that likely would be more challenging for an autistic person. And, and so like to try to make, I guess that's just a very specific example of how, you know, of course, David Brooks is just starting to explore all of this, but how we would want to make it very, very broad and diverse and keep thinking about what all is included.

And does everyone have to have each specific trait, you know, as we go forward with this kind of thinking. And then one final point is that he really does advocate for project-based learning, which is interesting, which is, which is like, is more of a holistic approach, and has different criteria. He even mentioned, well, so it has different criteria also for how it's measured. So, so there's kind of the aspect of like that, kids or young adults doing it.

It's like a little more, he didn't use this, this phrasing, but how I took it was, it's like more working with an actual, more reality-based problem. So it's, you know, not, it's very much more like the real world in terms of working with other people and how, what, how the project goes and, you know, if there's setbacks and all of that, and it's very much more holistic. but he also mentions how it can be, evaluated differently.

So of course, some of you may have heard of like, that there are occasionally schools that use narrative evaluations. So, but he does mention, you know, that can get unwieldy, like, but apparently, like, I don't know where this is used. He mentioned, he mentions it's used in some places in Australia. So I don't know exactly where this is used or exactly what it's like, but he does mention that there are things that aren't so like that long, like that, like a narrative report.

And he mentioned something called the big picture learning credential used in some places in Australia. So, so it's possible. I guess the point there is just that it's possible to go towards that kind of different evaluation and still make it workable. yeah, so, but we definitely think that that sounds great to try different kinds of learning, approaches and, and approaches to evaluation. And just to bring it back to, being dyslexic or, or, you know, neurodiversity, it's, it's of course, trying different approaches to learning is going to likely be a useful, a useful thing.

Yeah, definitely. And it was really refreshing to see, a discussion of such systemic changes in the mainstream media. even if he didn't identify neurodiversity, explicitly as one of the motivating factors, as, as you just said, like any discussion of this type, any change of this type is, probably going to be a benefit to people with dyslexia. Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully that was interesting. You know, we definitely thought it was a great article, and appreciate that David Brooks was willing to wade into this and really try to challenge like how things are.

Yeah. and so hopefully if you're interested in more, you can go ahead and take a look at the article. Like we said, you can do a free trial of the Atlantic to look at it. If you aren't, aren't interested in preaching is purchasing a subscription, and we'd love your feedback as well. you can always email us at parenting Dyslexia Journey at gmail.com. Thanks everyone.