High on a throne of royal state …
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence …
— Milton, Paradise Lost
I like the Garter; there is no damned merit in it.
— Wm. Lamb, On the Order of the Garter
The English language – my native tongue – has its share of ambiguities. This comment focused upon the specific word “merit,” and only as it is deployed in the world of schooling. I claim no expertise beyond that of ordinary parent and lawyer who has, by chance, since 1962, been cast as critic of America’s “public” schools.
In my experience, most Americans express pride in being citizens of a “meritocracy.” Interpreting that term in a particular way (and with historical support) they have reason to do so; but, having lived so long in fickle times (b. 1929), I have come to fear that the term “merit” – as used in our schools – is not only ambiguous but often so in a subtle and potentially hurtful manner. Happily, this second, dangerous meaning can be identified and tamed.
Webster describes merit thus:
[S]omething that deserves praise or reward; commendable quality or act …
Note that Webster avoids any substantive meaning for the term. Merit is “something”; but just what makes it “deserved” is left unspecified.
The problem with our valuing “meritocracy” is a common tendency to equate merit with the use of brains and natural talent simply to achieve success at some legitimate career. Those among us who become billionaires, intellectuals, statesmen, star singers, scientists or the like get labeled “meritorious” because of some talent-based accomplishment in his or her brief moment on this planet.
Merit is something each has gained in the efficient use of natural smarts, beauty or talent – not necessarily in kindness and simple goodness.
In reality, of course, each can exist with or without the other. We fairly credit Colin Powell with both; but then there is the “meritorious” Nobel winner who corrupts teenagers.
Our tendency to deploy this word to label earthly success obscures and cheapens its mission to identify the “true” merit that is earned in obscure roles such as friend, parent or Good Samaritan to the stranger.
Allow me one more quote, this from Coleridge:
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits
If any man obtain that which he merits
Or any merit that which he obtains
— The Good, Great Man
Coleridge may have overstated the problem. As a Boy Scout, I think I morally deserved at least some of my “merit badges.” But my later fascinating, mind-building assignment in the Army came by sheer luck and, in their classifications of curricula, assignment of individuals, and even the naming of schools.
Only promising, higher-performing students are admitted to programs dubbed “merit.” Particular schools even specify their basic admission criteria as “merit-based.”
Be clear; the substance of these policies and programs is not my concern here – only their labels. What does “merit” tell those who are rejected by that elite school or program? Is there a tag less dispiriting to the losers – child and parent?
Is it Pollyanna-ish to hope for labels less belittling, and perhaps more ambiguous? Would adjectives such as “experience-based” be such? What of the terms “skill,” “ready,” or “apt”? I concede the difficulty.
The problem with dethroning the “merit” words resides in the designing of parental subsidies for private school tuition (vouchers, etc.). Stephen Sugarman and I have designed specific model programs which would require participating private schools both to advertise widely their availability and reserve some fraction (say, a quarter), of all admissions for a lottery among “loser” applicants.
We have hoped, also, that “merit” and/or its cousins, such as “gifted” and “talented,” can be avoided in the entire admissions process. In any case, I would urge a continued effort to separate true human worth (and equality) from the halo of our natural and accidental gifts.
