School Is for Merit
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/opinion/us-school-merit.html
It was America’s public school system and its culture of meritocracy that allowed me, an immigrant girl from India who arrived at age 4 not knowing a word of English, to become a reporter for The Wall Street Journal at age 23. But now, as my high school classmates and I mark our 40th reunion, a war on merit is raging. We can’t afford to lose this ideal. The price would be too steep for our nation’s competitive place in the world and, more important, for our nation’s kids, who thrive when they are challenged and motivated to work hard and aim high.
Merit demands excellence and rigor. It is not, as its critics often insist, an elitist, classist or racist value.
New data shows shift at Lowell High School: More students given failing grades after admissions change
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/Lowell-High-admissions-17196603.php
Teachers at San Francisco’s Lowell High School gave freshman students significantly more D and F grades this past fall, the first semester after the school board eliminated the merit-based admissions it had relied on for decades.
Admissions standards an issue for high schools as well
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3266150-admissions-standards-an-issue-for-high-schools-as-well/
Attacking ‘merit’ in the name of ‘equity’ is a prescription for mediocrity
George F. Will observes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/25/attacking-merit-prescription-mediocrity/
“A meritocratic society has less discord than a society that abandons meritocratic principles. Equity, pursued through government-driven allocation of social rewards, drenches society with bitter distributional conflicts because wealth and opportunity are allocated by political power according to shifting standards contested by competing factions. Allowing the market to articulate preferences, without seeking to decide — who will decide who the deciders are? — the preferences’ moral worth, promotes domestic tranquility”.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/opinion/us-school-merit.html
It was America’s public school system and its culture of meritocracy that allowed me, an immigrant girl from India who arrived at age 4 not knowing a word of English, to become a reporter for The Wall Street Journal at age 23. But now, as my high school classmates and I mark our 40th reunion, a war on merit is raging. We can’t afford to lose this ideal. The price would be too steep for our nation’s competitive place in the world and, more important, for our nation’s kids, who thrive when they are challenged and motivated to work hard and aim high.
Merit demands excellence and rigor. It is not, as its critics often insist, an elitist, classist or racist value.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/Lowell-High-admissions-17196603.php
Teachers at San Francisco’s Lowell High School gave freshman students significantly more D and F grades this past fall, the first semester after the school board eliminated the merit-based admissions it had relied on for decades.
Admissions standards an issue for high schools as well
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3266150-admissions-standards-an-issue-for-high-schools-as-well/
Attacking ‘merit’ in the name of ‘equity’ is a prescription for mediocrity
George F. Will observes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/25/attacking-merit-prescription-mediocrity/
“A meritocratic society has less discord than a society that abandons meritocratic principles. Equity, pursued through government-driven allocation of social rewards, drenches society with bitter distributional conflicts because wealth and opportunity are allocated by political power according to shifting standards contested by competing factions. Allowing the market to articulate preferences, without seeking to decide — who will decide who the deciders are? — the preferences’ moral worth, promotes domestic tranquility”.
Harvard Needs Merit-Based Admissions
https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-needs-merit-based-admissions-college-supreme-court-decision-policies-race-11654116449
https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-needs-merit-based-admissions-college-supreme-court-decision-policies-race-11654116449