Short Take: A Meritorious Defense

It’s the first day of school,* so the Times has a series of op-eds about education in America. It’s an interesting mix of the usual assortment of fantasy and condemnation that largely goes nowhere as the educational establishment engages in its annual determination of what new fashion trend to promote this time around.

But one op-ed faces a hard choice, one that is so disfavored as to require parents to go to court to stop their local school board from trampling hard working, dedicated students under the sharp hooves of their unicorns. It’s an homage to merit.

Merit demands excellence and rigor. It is not, as its critics often insist, an elitist, classist or racist value. It acknowledges that all kids have talents. Even though talents are not distributed equally, it is our obligation as parents and teachers to nurture each child’s individual spark and make sure that all children have the chance to be the best that they can be.

This from an immigrant who came to America unable to speak English, and yet succeeded.

Merit should never have become a battlefront in the culture wars. I understand the impulse to declare the system rigged when so many children, particularly Black and Hispanic children, have fallen behind academically. But the answer to racial disparities in math and reading scores and advanced academic enrollment is not to blame the game and re-rig it to favor outcomes that please certain political constituencies but do little to make life better for struggling children. The solution is to channel more resources into disenfranchised communities — from the Black urban poor to the white rural poor in my native West Virginia. The solution is not to give up on merit.

There is no more pernicious racist lie than black and Hispanic children are incapable of achieving anything based on merit.

To the extent there’s a “problem,” merit is no guarantee of success. There are other elements, luck, timing, connections, which differentiate between hard work resulting in accomplishment. But the alternative, not trying, denigrating effort, punishing effort by refusing to recognize it, almost certainly guarantees failure.

This race to the bottom doesn’t help the young people it sets out to uplift, including students with learning disabilities, people facing socioeconomic challenges and new English language learners.

Of course, the author of the op-ed is Asian, which makes her suspect since everyone knows they have a culture of hard work and sacrifice to achieve success, and that’s far too much to expect of black people, if you think so little of them.

The question is whether we seek to achieve equality in success or failure? Or are you one of those people who don’t believe black and Hispanic children are smart enough, good enough and capable of being just as successful as anyone else, if given the opportunity to be their best?

*Yes, not for you, but for most people, so suck it up for once and don’t try to make it all about you, you flaming narcissist.