Tag Archives: Merit

With Schools Ditching Merit for Diversity, Families of High Achievers Head for the Door, by Vince Bielski

Posted on January 7, 2023 | 1 comment

One of the worst things you can do to bright kids is not challenge them. From Vince Bielski at realclearwire.com:

Alex Shilkrut has deep roots in Manhattan, where he has lived for 16 years, works as a physician, and sends his daughter to a public elementary school for gifted students in coveted District 2. 

It’s a good life. But Shilkrut regretfully says he may leave the city, as well as a job he likes in a Manhattan hospital, because of sweeping changes in October that ended selective admissions in most New York City middle schools. 

These merit-based schools, which screened for students who met their high standards, will permanently switch to a lottery for admissions that will almost certainly enroll more blacks and Latinos in the pursuit of racial integration.  

Shilkrut is one of many parents who are dismayed by the city’s dismantling of competitive education. He says he values diversity but is concerned that the expectation that academic rigor will be scaled back to accommodate a broad range of students in a lottery is what’s driving him and other parents to seek alternatives.

Although it’s too early to know how many students might leave the school system due to the enrollment changes, some parents say they may opt for private education at $50,000 a year and others plan to uproot their lives for the suburbs despite the burdens of such moves.

“We will very likely leave the public schools,” says Shilkrut, adding that he knows 10 Manhattan families who also plan to depart. “And if these policies continue, there won’t be many middle- and upper middle-class families left in the public schools.” 

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Education, Government, Horseshit

Tagged

From Status to Merit and Back to Status, by Paul Craig Roberts

Posted on January 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

It took centuries for humanity to partially move from status to merit. Reversing that is a giant leap backwards. From Paul Craig Roberts at paulcraigroberts.com:

Henry Sumner Maine in 1861 wrote that “the movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract.”  Maine is referring to the rise of merit from the Enlightenment and its replacement of aristocratic status as the basis for advancement.

In the past few decades today’s progressives have turned this movement upside down. The new progressive movement is from merit to status based on race, gender, and sexual preference.  Already in law there is a two-tier system of rights and privileges governing university admissions, employment, promotion, and criminal law that mimic the medieval era of status-based rights.  Astute observers would also point out that in the 21st century both Republican and Democrat presidents have resurrected the power of medieval governments to confine people in prison on suspicion alone and to execute the accused without due process of law.

In 1995 in my book, The New Color Line, I said that the failure of the House and Senate to hold the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accountable for implementing a racial and gender quota regime despite the explicit prohibition in the 1964 Civil Rights Act would result in the restoration of status-based rights and inequality under the law.  At the time my point was acknowledged, but the advocates of racial quotas and preferential hiring and promotion claimed the privileges were only a temporary measure until blacks had caught up and were proportionately represented in government and the professions.  It was obvious to me that once merit was abandoned because it was disadvantageous to preferred races, merit could not be easily restored.

Merit was first abandoned in university admission requirements for blacks alone.  This was followed by a general lowering of grading standards and then to pass-fail systems so that there was no way to measure the relative performance of the races.  Since then we have gone much further long this road.  Merit has been written off as racist and meritocracy as a tool of white oppression.

We have come full circle.  Henry Maine saw merit as liberation from status-based systems.  Today merit is regarded as suppression of status-based rights.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, Law, Politics, Propaganda, race relations

Tagged ,

Mediocrity Is Now Mandatory, by Andy Kessler

Posted on February 9, 2021 | 1 comment

Ellsworth Toohey would be proud. (If you don’t know who Ellsworth Toohey is, reading The Fountainhead isn’t a bad way to spend your reading time for a week or two. From Andy Kessler at theburningplatform.com:

Has an era of American mediocrity begun? In January the College Board announced it would eliminate the essay portion of the SAT, as well as all of the separate SAT subject tests. Their stated purpose was “reducing and simplifying demands on students.” Such a burden.

One high school near me just dropped freshman advanced-standing (honors) English “to combat the effects of academic ‘tracking” because it “ultimately separates students of different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds.” It turns out that middle schools from lower-income areas aren’t adequately preparing their students for high school. So rather than fix that problem, they dumbed down high school.

Then again, when the University of California system did away with racial preferences in 1996, it moved to holistic admissions. What does holistic mean? Anything you want. The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities defines it as “assessing an applicant’s unique experiences alongside traditional measures of academic readiness.” Grades are only a suggestion—and SAT scores are biased, supposedly. And here you thought smart students got into good colleges. Yes, mediocrity has crept into our self-proclaimed elite colleges. Job recruiters understand this.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Academia, Collapse, Education, Governments

Tagged ,