Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Standardized exams are the most fair and transparent. perhaps the _most_ fair right now, but certainly not what I would consider fair. consider a middle class family that has secure food, housing, and transportation vs lower class family where the child might potentially have less consistent sleep, food, or has to work to help pay bills. one has more distractions than the other.
And how do you correct for that? Move all children to government controlled facilities and do not let them see their parents until they are some age like 21? Or maybe we should get rid of all criteria for education and just do huge once a year lottery. You get one chance to enter. As poor people can not afford more.
Then you gotta make it affordable for them.
You can still have elite schools for the absolute best (though I would question that certain self-styled 'elite schools' are really principally selecting for that and not e.g. wealth or family connections), but that doesn't mean that you cannot raise the bar on public and affordable education (including traditional schools and universities but also via other means, e.g. self-teaching via online resources). These are two competing goals and often people only focus on the one to the exclusion of the other, but they are both important.