Literary Review #4

Citation: Guinier, Lani. The Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America. Boston, MA: Beacon, 2015. Print.

Summary: This book discusses the problem with today’s higher education system as it relates to merit and poses some solutions based off of research and studies. Guinier explains that one of the reasons behind society only focusing on the success of top students rather than the success of all students is because society values a testocratic meritocracy over one that is democratic and actually more useful for economics and politics. Guinier dives into examples, one of a Harvard professor changing his teaching style, of how a democratic sense of merit would benefit more students and society as a whole.

Author: Lani Guinier graduated from Yale Law School in 1974 after attending Radcliffe College in 1971. She was an active member of the Civil Rights Division under the Carter Administration and went on to becoming the head of the Voting Rights projects for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She then went on to teaching at UPenn’s Law School and is now currently teaching at Harvard Law. Her work in all sorts of educational platforms makes experienced in the problems of higher education.

Key Terms:

            Testocratic merit—judging one’s intelligence based on how well they can perform on exams like the SATS, ACTS and tests of that nature. Students are placed into levels of intelligence based on those grades, not taking into consideration of any economic disadvantages. This method of determining intelligence is so valued by society because it is simple and easy to compare students. And society as a whole wants to find simple answers even though that could be unbeneficial for complex questions.

           

            Democratic merit—this can alleviate the selectivity of ivy leagues and even Wall Street and other elite jobs. This merit exemplifies intelligence of students by looking at their understanding of course work and how well they can conceptualize what they are learning. Take away the single number and single test and focus on their actual intelligence on an everyday basis. By doing this disadvantages in wealth are eliminated and the term intelligence can  be hold a more diverse meaning which can help society.

           

Quotes:

            “Aptitude tests do not predict leadership, emotional intelligence, or the capacity to work with others to contribute to society” (Guinier, 26).

            “For the SAT-test defenders, carefully analyzing a question, apparently, does not exemplify merit. Our over-emphasis on the testocracy has us confusing merit with speed and confidence to guess” (Guinier, 81).

            “Often, students would score high on tough exams but then give response to questions in class that suggested a serious lack of understanding of the core concepts underlying material… Yes, his students could ‘plug and chug’ answers on an exam…but could they really understand physics at a deeper level” (Guinier, 85).

            “There are strong indications that the skill sets promoted by systems of democratic merit will better serve the challenges of a twenty-first century world, which demand complex problem solving and collaboration among diverse individuals” (Guinier, 123).

           

Value: This academic source is extremely as both key terms are a fundamental part of my paper. Guinier insight and solutions to an increasing problem is supported by studies. The study that Eric Mazur conducted with his physics students at Harvard will be great support for how Ivy Leagues define success and how that that’s not necessarily a positive definition.