PURE MERITOCRACY IS A MYTH.

The debates concerning social justice, affirmative action, diversity and migration inevitably consider the outcomes of social-political actions. The progressive camp would argue that those without social-economic provenance or heritage deserve accommodation, a step up, by lowering requirements in their favor. Conservatives argue against this approach in favor of equal application of performance standards for all, regardless of social-economic origins. This latter approach, in the conservative mind, assures overall social and economic progress by obtaining the best outcomes for society and individuals.

This is a tricky issue. It is made muddier by stirring up racial and ethnic elements. The Left uses these elements to justify its pose of moral superiority. The Right claims its refusal to acknowledge these elements is equally moral from the perspective of a truly level playing field for all without focusing on race or ethnicity. Neither pole of the debate is effective in actually dealing with the issues to benefit society at large. 

One concrete example of a level playing field for all from an absolutist point of view makes this clear. The merging of special education classes with the general school population in public schools has been disastrous for public education in the U.S.. Absorbing millions of children with English as a second language into the public schools has also been disastrous, both economically and practically. The general deterioration of achievement and behavior in public schools has hit rock bottom.

Charter schools with admissions and behavioral standards are simply a return to the merit-based standards corrupted by bad social-justice policies in public schools. Charter schools are able to design curricula that are suited to their target populations. In other words, charter schools have been freed of the chains imposed by a badly designed move to The Left in public education. Students and society benefit. But even the positive influence of charter schools has not been adequate to prevent the negative influence of bad public education on our colleges and universities.

I can share some ancient personal experience with these issues. I was raised in a small city which was populated by struggling working-class people. Our public schools, even in the 1950's, were strained by poverty. My Catholic parents sent me to the local parish school, where the education was substandard in comparison to public and private schools in wealthy towns. However, the behavioral and educational standards were high enough to train me to compete for a scholarship slot in a private Jesuit prep school. I barely squeezed in with a relatively low score on the entrance exam. I was assigned to the tenth of ten home rooms, ranked by achievement on the entrance exam.

Three years later I was recruited by a Jesuit university with a full academic scholarship and the added benefit of skipping my last year of prep school. But here's the thing. I was the only student from a working-class background of the four of us to be offered this opportunity out of a class of 400. And I was the only one who had never been promoted to the elite advanced placement honors group at the prep school. I had taken many of my classes with the 'less-than' student body, while the wealthier students from wealthier suburbs attended most classes together.  Our selection for early admissions to college was based in grade-point average, a pure statistic. We were all in the math-science program, the most challenging in the school.

What did this teach me? Well, obviously my merit alone did not elevate my circumstances to equal those of the wealthier students in the school. If anything, I was challenged more rigorously by my teachers to test whether I could perform at the same level as those who had social-economic advantages. And that challenging was sometimes ruthless. The wall between me and the upper middle class students was palpable, despite my demonstrable merit.

I am glad I experienced this. It was a good lesson for life. I pity those deluded souls who feel that some system of downgrading standards can change human evolution for the better overnight. If I had not been challenged in the way I was, I would have been a weaker person as an adult gay man. But I still agree that meritocracy in its pure form does not exist in human society. Those with merit and social-economic provenance move to the head of the merit line just about everywhere. In fact, I speculate that population and environmental pressures will increase nepotism and heritage deference in the future.