Review: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a really interesting look at many difficult issues. I enjoyed the writing style and the unique take on issues such as education, drugs, safety, etc. However, I did have a few issues with it. While Levitt presents many facts and is clearly trying to show that he is leaving his personal beliefs or biases out, but I'm not sure that is the case. He makes a lot of assumptions that do indicate his biases. For example, Levitt writes a lot about high stakes testing and the bad teachers who cheated to have their students do better on state tests. He writes a lot about the "good" verses "bad" teachers, but fails to define what makes them good or bad. Obviously cheating on tests is a terrible thing to do, but there is little to no discussion about how the high stakes tests themselves could be problematic or how students may do poorly on these tests despite having a good teacher. It is simply assumed that if teachers have a group of students that does well on these tests they must be good teachers and if the students do not do well they must have bad teachers. I don't personally believe that. I am sure there are plenty of bad teachers, but I don't think that a multiple-choice state-mandated test can tell you which teachers are good and which or bad (or which students, for that matter). High stakes testing doesn't tell half the story for students or for teachers.

As a teacher and the daughter of educators (one parent is a principal, one a reading specialist), I have a little bit of knowledge about education and was able to see some of the issues with Levitt's writing in this area. Because I don't know much about a lot of the other topics he wrote about, I'm not sure what else I'm missing, but I kept feeling like I may only be getting part of the story. I really enjoyed it and flew through it while reading, but I am still concerned about some of what he had to say. I just kept wondering what else I was missing. He writes about things as though they are indisputable facts, when in fact, there may be other ways of looking at the issues. That can be dangerous. However, it was certainly an entertaining read and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.



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