Meritocracy would be perfect: if only we knew how to measure merit…

Standardized tests make us fit a pre-defined statistical mould — before we have a chance to step out into the world.

To a society that is in desperate need of fresh and diverse perspectives, there’s nothing worse…

The structures that uphold our “merit-based” system are running into an existential crisis: no one really knows how to quantify the thing it lays its foundation on — merit.

While many people (myself included) prefer to believe we got to where we are today because of our merit, our greatest abilities — logical reasoning, grit, leadership, empathy, ambition — are not easily quantifiable by any means.

It’s true some people are able to showcase these at an early stage in life. However, for most students the primary gateway into meriting yourself a seat at the top of the meritocracy — getting into a good college — is through standardized tests such as the SAT.

The model which standardized tests use today was conceived as a statistical tool. This blueprint was never meant to measure a student’s intrinsic ability.

As students, we are largely taught to learn how to take a test — how to quiz, how to perform.

Standardized tests have an unmatched influence on how we educate. We haven’t yet found a better way to measure people’s abilities before they’ve had a chance to show them off in the real world.

However, the model for testing, and standardized testing in particular, was never meant to serve this function for the education system.

The IQ exam, on which the SAT and other standardized tests were largely modeled, had never been intended as a true reflection of someone’s inherent merit. It was created simply as a statistical tool.

The IQ model, on which standardized tests such as the SAT are modeled, has always been structured as follows:

1. You ask a large number of people a lot of random “hypothesis” questions.
2. Then, you look at which questions differentiate best between your target (successful individuals) and the rest of the population.

• In the case of the SAT, for example, we select “hypothesis question 50” if it really baffled subjects who ended up dropping out of college, while those who aced question 50 ended up with a Ph.D. 6 years later. So far so good…

The problem is, when next year rolls around, we need to create a whole new SAT. And once again we have to use the exact same model.

Standardized tests slowly define their own target.

Over a life-time of a generation, the SAT is the initial screening for who ends up at the top of the “meritocracy”: who goes to a good college, obtains a Ph.D., earns a good GPA, gets a good job.

But these same people who end up at the top define again and again the metrics for who is “successful” and who isn’t when next year rolls around — when we need to select 200 new hypothesis questions, for a whole new set of SAT’s.

That is, last year’s batch of successful people then determine how the SAT selects next year’s batch of successful people… who then define “success” or “merit” for the next, and the next, and the next generation of high school seniors.

Eventually, a person’s merit is no longer merited of its own.

Fifty years later, we end up where we are today: merit is defined in a circular way:

“These people succeeded in life. Therefore the next generation of students who are most like them must also succeed in life. And, therefore the following generation of high-school seniors who are most similar to their successful predecessors must also succeed in life…” And on, and on.

Is it much more than a fifty-years-long cycle of self-reference?

Slowly, people that fit the exact same ancient archetype of success, and only they, rise to the top of the meritocracy. And again and again, they perpetuate this circular-definition of “merit” and “success”.

Just like a Markov Chain, this never-ending recursive cycle is starting to converge before our eyes.

But how the world has changed since the originators of this cycle were born!

If we trace back these measures of success, “let’s pick the students who are most like their successful predecessors…” fifty years back, we’ll see that our definition of merit has been static since around the 1960’s!

We are slowly applying “old-world” metrics of success to young students who will necessarily have to face “new world” problems!

(Not to mention that our definition of a successful students dates back to an era where the Civil Rights Act had only just been passed!)

Our education system and economy are becoming more and more fossilized with the exact same type of “successful” person — and we can see that our society is slowly becoming less and less able to adapt, or change to the new circumstances we are faced with:

• global warming
• unbridled consumerism and materialism
• endless wars all over the world
• politics that are devoid of any ideology — populism
• technological crises
• how COVID was handled here in America
• new and unfolding manifestations of racism in our society
• … and on and on and on.

If there’s anyone to blame for inaction and inability to adapt, we must blame the decision makers — that is, the people who were allowed to rise to the top of our meritocratic heap.

To a society that needs to move forward and is in desperate need of new perspectives, this is a hugely detrimental cycle — we can’t afford to make the same mistakes over and over and over again.

The meritocracy forms the basis — the justification — for our most foundational institutions: our economy, our democracy, our equality.

Trust in these institutions is at an all time low. Let’s address this critical issue now, before it gets too late.

Originally published on my webpage at: yuvalmedina.com/blog