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The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

city-journal.org

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Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#31

Post by lambdasquirrel »

johnnyo wrote: post #17

The opening paragraphs seem to imply that the awards were withheld based on race. When you get into the meat of the article, though, it makes it more clear that the school just forwarded a paper cert to the kids, and didn’t make a big deal about it. And parents are complaining because the school didn’t make a big deal out of it or get it to students “fast enough” to apply for some early admission stuff. It’s been a w…

If that’s what’s going on then it’s a little overblown, IMO. I went to Stuy and I think they just posted the list of National Merit Scholarships on a bulletin board somewhere, and yeah we all gawked to see who got it, but then it was just back to the grind. It’s not like it was some ace-in-hole that could make or break your admission.

Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#32

Post by johnnyo »

havetocharge wrote: post #27
johnnyo wrote: post #17

The opening paragraphs seem to imply that the awards were withheld based on race. When you get into the meat of the article, though, it makes it more clear that the school just forwarded a paper cert to the kids, and didn’t make a big deal about it. And parents are complaining because the school didn’t make a big deal out of it or get it to students “fast enough” to apply for some early admission stuff. It’s been a w…

Maybe there's a meatier part still, where the author alleges that they have yet to receive a certificate earned two years ago.

As a parent, the chances a piece of paper given to a kid in homeroom makes it to the parent are probably 50% at best. Probably lower.

I know when I was a student, it was probably below 25%

Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#33

Post by notwokeno »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #26

All of this stuff is just so hilariously nonsense. Dude, some people have to lose. We can shuffle as much as we want, we can probably make them perfectly distributed amongst races, sexes, heights, weights, whatever. But there will still be a shit ton of losers. It's just how the world works. You can't have 8 billion flying Tesla electric private jets to Malibu.

The thing people can't handle with this is that intelligence tends to be heritable* so the more intelligent workers you need the smaller and more racily similar the successful group is going to be which runs directly contrary to the currently popular world view.

*It's influenced by other things too of course. Once you hit a (fairly low) limit it's going to start skewing more and more male. Upbringing is a huge part of it too so children of divorced parents tend to perform worse etc.

Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#34

Post by johnnyo »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #31
johnnyo wrote: post #17

The opening paragraphs seem to imply that the awards were withheld based on race. When you get into the meat of the article, though, it makes it more clear that the school just forwarded a paper cert to the kids, and didn’t make a big deal about it. And parents are complaining because the school didn’t make a big deal out of it or get it to students “fast enough” to apply for some early admission stuff. It’s been a w…

If that’s what’s going on then it’s a little overblown, IMO. I went to Stuy and I think they just posted the list of National Merit Scholarships on a bulletin board somewhere, and yeah we all gawked to see who got it, but then it was just back to the grind. It’s not like it was some ace-in-hole that could make or break your admission.

Yeah, if you drill down into the actual sources, that appears to be what happened.

The school got a stack of certificates. They sat on the principals desk for a while, then they sat with the guidance counselor or homeroom teachers before being passed out.

The parent is basically complaining because:

1. They didn’t notify the parents via email.

2. They didn’t find out in time to put in on an college early admission application.

3. The school didn’t make a big deal of handing out the awards in an assembly or similar.

This sounds more like a complaint from an overbearing helicopter parent than any sort of issue that HN would care about.

Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#35

Post by havetocharge »

johnnyo wrote: post #32
havetocharge wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there's a meatier part still, where the author alleges that they have yet to receive a certificate earned two years ago.

As a parent, the chances a piece of paper given to a kid in homeroom makes it to the parent are probably 50% at best. Probably lower. I know when I was a student, it was probably below 25%

This is a possible outcome. However, another possibility is that not all children are of the same aptitude, and therefore your experience might not be representative of their.

Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#36

Post by zapataband1 »

DAVer98 wrote: post #23
imgabe wrote: post #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…

[flagged]

great, the red-scare boomers have invaded HN. The USSR hasn't existed for half a century you can put your pearls away

Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#37

Post by stonogo »

The cognitive dissonance in this article is staggering. It's the "top school" in the country, but at the same time it's being mismanaged because administrators aren't doing the work of some third-party student-ranking corporation? Or it's the "top school" in the country but there's deep injustice because they don't throw pizza parties for kids who are good at standardized tests?

The struggle between "this is the best school" and "these administrators are terrible" is never resolved, but it sounds like the quickest way to end this battle in the "war on merit" is for the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to mail the paper to the students instead of outsourcing it to the teachers.

Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#38

Post by salad-fan »

ipaddr wrote: post #29
salad-fan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why do you think your kids are safer at public school from being molested? The stats would say you are safer at Catholic school where lines are less blurred and fewer teachers date students. But most likely to commit such an act is a parent or someone close to the child. Sending them to any school might be the safest option.

What makes you think Catholic school kids don’t have parents or other relatives?

And are you trying to argue that the Catholic Church does not have a history of child molestation? Because the evidence seems pretty overwhelming to me.

Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#39

Post by NERD_ALERT »

DAVer98 wrote: post #23
imgabe wrote: post #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…

[flagged]

What exactly do you think communism means?

Re: The war on merit takes a bizarre turn

#40

Post by johnnyo »

havetocharge wrote: post #35
johnnyo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, the chances a piece of paper given to a kid in homeroom makes it to the parent are probably 50% at best. Probably lower. I know when I was a student, it was probably below 25%

This is a possible outcome. However, another possibility is that not all children are of the same aptitude, and therefore your experience might not be representative of their.

I was a National Merit scholar, FWIW.

It’s not really a “prestigious award”. According to the article, 240 kids at the school got the same thing.

At my large high school, lots of kids got it too.

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