Yes, measuring merit is hard. Still ought to be done.
Adding extra factors like that always favors those with resources. Sure an entrance exam pushes test prep but it is simple so even parents with limited language ability can fill out the form.
Until we start separating children from their parents and raising them all in a crèche, this will always be the case. I would suggest that the more complexity you add to the definition of “merit” the more that parents with resources will be able to help their offspring.
Ultimately the problem is that the general feeling is that the sins of the father shouldn’t be a problem for their children, but if some of those sins are related to the development of those children, those sins ARE visited upon the children.
But the problem is that when you’re saying things are a meritocracy, then you end up with a situation where helping one person is literally hurting another, because you’re deliberately making an exception for an unqualified person, and telling another qualified person in essence that “You’re qualified, and would have made it in, but we let this unqualified person in for some other reason beyond the stated qualifications”.
I can totally see why people would be upset about that if they’ve been told it’s a competitive meritocratic process, and then TPTB yank the rug out and say 'Haha, fooled you; it’s only that way for SOME people."
It’s not a problem in the main, but it is at the edges. Organizations would probably do better to have some portion as strictly meritocratic, and then the remainder as a less meritocratic system- where things like background, etc… come into it.
The worst possible thing IMO is to set up a faux meritocracy like Texas did when they came up with the top 10% admission rule. What that did is effectively screw a LOT of the best students in the state out of admission in the big state schools. The rule was that the top 10% students in class rank got automatic admission to UT or A&M. Which sounds good, but not all schools are equal; the top 25% at a large academically oriented high school could well be better students than the top 5% at say… some poor school in the Rio Grande Valley. But the law treats them as if the schools and class ranking are equal.
Now ultimately the students know the game and can work toward it, but in a larger sense, it doesn’t benefit the state or society at large to not give the best education possible to everyone, and that top 10% rule doesn’t achieve that.
In a true merit system, assuming two people with the same goal, hard work is concrete evidence of low merit. The higher-merit candidate doesn’t have to work as hard to achieve the same thing. In terms of pure 100% merit, hard work is for losers and chumps. It’s the destination that counts, not the journey.
I don’t know if you can say that with certainty. In the final analysis what counts is the end product, not the efficiency in producing it. It shouldn’t matter if one guy took months of grinding toil and the other spent half a day, if one end product is clearly better than the other.
Now if efficiency is part of the end product, that’s different. But if we’re talking about something like a test score, then the score matters, not how much studying went into it.
I agree that the sins of the father should be visited on the son if (and to the extent) the son is demonstrably benefitting from his father’s sins. But in the case of Stuyvesant, its a push to get rid of or minimize an objective admission test to increase black and Hispanic students at the expense of mostly poor asian students. it hard to see how the children of poor asian immigrants benefitted from their father’s sins.
No… I think we’re on the same side here. Clearly the poor Asian kids are doing the right things and because of it, they’re disproportionately represented, and are thus being penalized for it in favor of people who weren’t as good academically.
Why not just work with black and hispanic students to help them bring up their scores, rather than try and move the goal posts?
Point is, it didn’t matter if this person was barely competent enough to handle the gases, or brilliant at handling the gases. He was still getting a good raise.
So much for meritocracy.
And we all know that the person who fucks up and recovers gets more recognition than the person who never fucks up at all.
I think the biggest differentiator is that there are some parents who take their role as parents very seriously, and whose conception of their role as parents is that one of their primary roles, along with provider and protector, is to educate and guide their children in such a way that they’re set up for success in adulthood by the point that they become independent.
Also, I don’t know how you would control for a lack of that parental drive in a meritocratic system, because by definition, meritocratic systems try and measure everyone by the same yardstick. Once you start handicapping people, it’s no longer meritocratic. It’s like having a 100 meter dash, and making the athletic kid start 10 meters back from the normal starting line, and starting an unathletic kid 20 meters ahead of it. At best, you’ll handicap it such that both kids cross the line at about the same time and the unathletic one may even “win”, but you haven’t figured out who is actually FASTER, which is the point of the race. And meritocratic systems work the same way- if you futz around with the rules and testing to favor one group over another, you haven’t really chosen the best person for the task as measured by the same yardstick. What you’ve done is chosen a winner based on a weighted scoring system, which isn’t the same thing.
The real answer is one of two things- either work on making the unathletic kid faster, or changing the race itself to measure in a different way, or measure something else.
Yes, but apparently that stuff doesn’t count because:
Asians seem to be doing fine despite the racism (so how bad could the racism really be?)
Asians are a relatively politically powerless minority (so racism against them is politically acceptable, maybe even politically correct if done in furtherance of a more politically desirable objective)
There is resentment against Asians by Blacks AND Whites so picking on them is also populist pressure to ignore racism against Asians
This is the basic problem with meritocracy in America. The losers don’t like losing so they keep changing the rules to find a game they can win. So political power to control the rules of the game rather than merit becomes the most important factor.
In our system, however, the child of wealth starts 10 yards ahead of the line. There are enrichment programs. There are probably better educated parents who can help with homework. There are SAT classes. There even may be legacy admissions. So moving the poor kid up 10 yards might just be equalizing things a bit.
That’s a neat fiction those with privilege tell themselves to make them think they deserve it.
Everyone is talking about “meritocracy” in a real measurable sense like running races or school grades. Or in some abstract sense of the “best person for the job”, whatever that means. In the real world, “merit” is not so clear, nor is it so well defined. Who has greater “merit”? An Ivy League grad in some cushy do-nothing government job or a high school drop-out who starts a multi-million dollar company?
What “merits” does society value? Clearly making money is one of them. But does generating wealth necessarily translate into bettering society?
Plus no one REALLY believes in a meritocracy. Does anyone really want a society where they are constantly being evaluated and can be replaced at a moments notice as soon as their employer finds someone a bit faster or cheaper? How many people in the work force can be the “best at what they do” anyway?
So what? At the end of the day, isn’t the point of the race to see who’s fastest, not to try and fudge things to make it more equal. And doesn’t whoever’s setting up their meritocratic person want the person who does the best on whatever the measure is, regardless of background or whatever?
That is the ENTIRE point of a meritocracy.
Look at it this way… let’s say that we’re talking Army officers. Let’s say that one is somehow clearly disadvantaged by not having quite the same education as his white peers , and therefore he doesn’t do as well on the performance exams for that reason. Do you really think that this guy should get a leg up because of that? Remember, people’s lives depend on whether or not this guy is a competent officer. It’s all good to say that it’s unfair, but to some degree, compassion in these sorts of cases can be akin to cruelty to others outside of the meritocratic system (i.e. the enlisted men under his command).
I’m not implying that the other kid in the race shouldn’t get some kind of help, but it shouldn’t be in the form of applying different standards and scores for him, but more in the form of trying to make sure he’s qualified for the race before it happens.
AFAICT, its the ones with privilege that have the political power to change the rules of the game to change the definition of merit to benefit themselves and their children.
Well, this particular thread is in fact about test scores, which is a fairly measurable thing. Did you watch the video?
The supposed benefit of a meritocracy is that those with merit come out ahead. Which would be great, except does the person who gets all the advantages really have more merit than someone who did not? Is the person with a ten yard lead who wins the race actually faster than the others?
Extra help is not about equalizing results, but trying to get everyone to the same starting spot. The kid who grows up in a house with no books, and whose parents don’t even know where the library is, is going to be at a disadvantage.
Making up for these disadvantages is tough, but let’s not pretend a system where they exist is a meritocracy. It isn’t. Those with the advantages like to think it is, of course.
So is the naturally athletic kid who sits on a couch all day because his parents don’t know what a ball looks like. Should he have the same shot at making the baseball team as the less athletically talented kid who is a much better player because he spent thousands of hours working on his swing and his throw and had a dad that played minor league ball and could teach him everything there is to know about baseball?
What advantages do those poor asian immigrant kids have again?
Two years later. I’m still here, which must prove I’m good.
I totally agree about sports. Beyond what you said, the kid whose parents who could afford tennis lessons or ice skating lessons or gymnastics coaching has an advantage.
As for Asian kids, I was on a GATE parents group for our district, which has lots of Asian parents. Not all that poor. The Asian parents seemed to care a lot more about their kids getting enriched. In our library the mother who is checking out a dozen books for a little kid is Asian. Asian kids get pushed. This may or may not be a good thing, but it is true.
On the other hand, I was on Site Council for the mostly white high school my kids went to. When they were selecting a new principal, I was in a meeting where the kind of principal parents wanted was outlined. Mostly it was support for the sports program. When I got up and said that a drive for academic excellence should be the highest priority, they looked at me like I was nuts.
I understand this because 60 years ago when I was growing up Jewish kids and Jewish parents occupied the same niche. My parents supported me in academics, and they weren’t rich. There is one doctor, one lawyer and one PhD among the five cousins in my mother’s side.
Family attitudes do a lot. But money helps also.
