The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
city-journal.org
The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
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Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
#2Interesting this school had or has a controversial admissions policy. I also recognize that Harvard’s at the Supreme Court.
I genuinely do not understand the logic behind what is essentially skin-color diversity.
(https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/04/court-allows-elite-virgin...)
Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
#3As a TJ C/O 2002 graduate, this is pretty wild to hear. The national merit scholar announcements were a big deal when I was there. There was a school wide announcement and the list of what everyone got was distributed by the school.
Actually, it looks like the Washington Post used to publish the lists at least as late as 2014. I don’t see anything from WaPo after that though.
Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
#4This has reached the point of actively disadvantaging kids who are capable…
Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
#5"Equal outcomes for every student"
I'm genuinely curious what this is supposed to mean. Every student gets into the same university? They all get the same job at the exact same salary upon graduation? What is the real-world consequence of this policy supposed to be?
If your outcome as a student is guaranteed to be equal to every other student's outcome, what is the incentive to work harder?
Outcomes being equal doesn't necessarily mean they're good. The students could all fail and get minimum wage jobs. That would also be an equal outcome.
Even if we assume the school goes to the extreme of assigning students the same grades and recognition regardless of performance, maybe some virtuous students don't care about the recognition and spend extra time studying math because they simply love math. They will end up being better at math than students who don't - an unequal outcome. How is the policy supposed to address this?
Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
#6[deleted]
Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
#7This has reached the point of actively disadvantaging kids who are capable…
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Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
#8All schools, all companies should just say upfront that they want “equality of outcomes”; that way, students and prospective job applicants don’t need to waste time putting efforts to acquire any skills or even efforts to learn anything. Since the outcome is decided by tick marks, it is rational for people to not learn.
Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
#9"Equal outcomes for every student" I'm genuinely curious what this is supposed to mean. Every student gets into the same university? They all get the same job at the exact same salary upon graduation? What is the real-world consequence of this policy supposed to be? If your outcome as a student is guaranteed to be equal to every other student's outcome, what is the incentive to work harder? Outcomes being equal doesn…
Equal outcomes for everyone means you have no way to influence your own outcome.
The logical reaction is to put in zero effort.
Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn
#10This has reached the point of actively disadvantaging kids who are capable…
Isn't that the point?