think Guinier makes a compelling, if slightly muddled, point throughout the book: that the illusion of meritocracy as measured by tests like the SAT is not very meaningful, Even though the outlier story of a minority student succeeding on the measurable outcome is salient, it was quite surprising to learn how most people of color e, g. at Harvard were descendants of professors/came from upperclass backgrounds,
I also enjoyed reading about the case studies of things that have worked better, like the Posse Foundation, I think it started to verbalize some of what I have seen that higher education systems as they exist now, especially at the top of the "rankings", are a collection of people who are already accomplished, as opposed to developing the skills of those who most need it.
I think I have been internalizing some of these ideas for some time now classism, the failures of the system, etc and am quite glad that it didn't come off as shocking to me.
All that said, I don't think the path forward is clear pointing flaws at a current system doesn't fix it, and it's not even clear to me that something like the SAT should be removed until some scalable prototype exists to supplement it compare the older system of admitting people by "manly Christian character" or the current of "portfolios" and "holistic essays" that the book describes also as ways to fudge the numbers and continue discrimination.
In other words, the thesis became a little muddled by nature of the examples chosen, but I agree with the following: that meritocracy is an illusion based on the ways it is currently measured, and so we should all view the education system with some amount of skepticism because it doesn't try to measure other attributes in concrete ways and places value on this sort of tested merit.
Great explanation of the history of the SAT and other parts of the college process, but few actionable suggestions for change, Provides a nice overview of the current research on teaching and learning across higher education, Targeted at a popular audience, but we'll cited with extensive end notes, The idea of testocracy and meritocracy is an interesting framework that can be a useful way to think about the topic, sitelinkLani Guinier, professor of law at Harvard University, has written a persuasive argument against the prevalence of highstakes testing particularly the SAT as the primary way of evaluating and predicting student achievement.
Her argument, however, is not only against the inaccuracy of the testing process but of the very purpose of education in general and colleges in particular, Instead of merely a means of accessing more powerful and lucrative employment, Guinier focuses on the function of education as a means of creating thinking, participatory citizens who work collaboratively with others and leave school prepared and willing to contribute to society and to become leaders.
I found the first part of the book the most interesting, Guinier demonstrates how the current "meritocracy" or, as she also calls it, "testocracy" replicates current socioeconomic status and create individualists who compete with others at the expense of public policy and a healthy society.
Students who score well on the SATs are usually those who have been taught how to take a test successfully, not necessarily those who think most creatively or effectively and certainly not those who consider the welfare of others, or the group as a whole.
By focusing intensively on test success, we create a society of takers rather than givers, We also exclude most of the society from access to institutions that, Guinier argues, should function as shapers of society not merely gateways to a narrowly defined success,
But although many colleges consider factors outside of the SATs for admissions, most primary and secondary schools also fail to prepare students to work collaboratively with others or problem solve creatively, In the second part of the book, Guinier examines programs that have worked to turn this focus around at all levels.
Professors who have moved from lectureoriented to collaborativefocused classes where students work in groups to both challenge and support each other have seen test scores rise across the board and discrepancies between students from minority groups and the traditionally high scoring white male students disappear.
In the final section of the book, and, for me, the least interesting, Guinier reviews the welldocumented and publicized studies showing that students who believe that intelligence is malleable and success based on effort rather than innate qualities over which one has little or no control are more successful than students who view intelligence as a fixed quality.
I found the first section of the book the most successful and interesting, The second section tended to focus on such specific examples that the flow of the book virtually halted, However, the examples were interesting and did point the way for systemic changes that could change the course of American democracy,
The book is brief but passionate and for me convincing in its arguments for a more inclusive, democratic view of student potential and how to develop it,
In the interest of transparency, I won this book through LibraryThing's Early er program in exchange for an honest review, Guinier provides practical examples of her hypothesis in action, The USs insistence on individualism and merit is deleterious to us all and she deftly argues that point, Well worth the read for anyone who believes systems need fixing, The transformation of higher education in America
In this book, Harvard University Law Professor Lani Guinier presents a simple argument in favor of collaborative models that strengthen higher educational systems.
She calls for overhaul of the standards of merit based admission policies adapted by colleges and universities, The merit systems dictate the admissions practices that favor the select few mainly the economically privileged, leaving behind the underprivileged families, The testocracy is a standardized quantifiable merit that values perfect scores but ignores character, says the author, In her law class, Professor Guinier gives the option of writing an exam in a group two or three, The upside of this task is that it tests ones ability to implement ideas and commit to communicating ones perspectives in a problem solving exercise,
She offers many examples of new collaborative initiatives that prepare students for engaged citizenship in our increasingly multicultural society, In the inner city neighborhoods of Chicago, residents participated at the community meetings because they saw that their participation made better schools and safer neighborhoods, The city also developed a curriculum for them to learn problem solving and collaboration skills Archon Fungs work in Chicago with police, community leaders, schools and city officials is a positive example.
Several other examples include Rail side and other public urban schools in San Francisco, Seattle and New York,
Lani Guinier is well known as President Bill Clinton's nominee for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in April, but later he withdrew his nomination, following a wave of negative press which distorted political and academic views of Professor Guinier.
This work is certainly worth reading since it examines the responsibility of higher educational institutions in creating learning communities for tomorrows leaders,
A convincing book, trying to persuade you that how we decide merit is flawed, Guinier does well at this, Perhaps it was just because I already had some background on this, but it did feel that this might have been better as a shorter essay rather than a full length book.
Nonetheless, it was a good read and I'd recommend this if you want an exercise in thinking critically aboutcollege admissions,what society values, andhow how admissions and values don't truly support one another as they are.
read, rousing, bears greater scrutiny got through the first part with the philosophical underpinnings and the recurrent touchstone of Father John's example of mentorship of the young Clarence Thomas what went wrong there, and the contrasting example of Sonia Sotomayor's rising above the naysayers.
I particularly agree with, and personally had voiced as a wee undergrad but clearly not loud enough how colleges and universities have a greater obligation to turning low performing students into higher achievers rather than getting the high achievers right off the bat in other words, shifting attention from admission to missiondriven.
It's what they say about good cooks anyone can make filet mignon or lobster, but it takes a really good cook to make food out of garbage, great book I saw the author in an interview and was intrigued with the theme in the title, We're way overtested and obsessed with ivyleague schools in this country and this book tackles an interesting them, There are many ways to game this system if a child has wealthy parents and I was looking forward to a good read, Unfortunately I don't think a lottery is a great way to admit students in schools and ultimately I gave up because the narrative sounded too much like a school text for a sociology class, such dry reading made me thirsty for a better focused book.
If this author is a professor at Harvard, he needs to take a writing course for organizing information into book form, Everyone who cares about education, democracy, and social justice needs to read this book, NOW. GO. This one is a puzzle to review because while it contains tons of good tidbits and ideas, it nevertheless misses the main point, Here is Guinier's thesis:
"Currently, merit is measured by an individual's test scores and grades, The higher the test scores and the better the grades, the more entitlements are granted to an individual by teachers, parents, administrators, other students, and even the general public, But this need not be the case, Instead, I've found that what is urgent for our worldand thus what we should consider most closely in educationis a student's capacity to collaborate and to think creatively, "
Or in other words, as she continues to reiterate throughout the book: "Aptitude tests do not predict leadership, emotional intelligence, or the capacity to work with others to contribute to society".
The problem with this thesis is that it is nothing revolutionary, and college admissions have already been trying to make up for their limited information, That's why we have college essays, and interviews, and teacher recs, and examination of extracurricular leadership positions community service, The problem lies not in having too few of these kinds of subjective character measures, but rather in the fact that these measuresin addition to the SAT!also happen to be heavily correlated to wealth and class in a myriad of subtle ways sitelinkcomic.
Our focus should not be on proving the value of collaboration and genuine problem solving in education which has already been proven and is common sense!, but addressing the core question of how and whether adcoms can truthfully measure merit at all.
ALL THIS ASIDE, the bits on growth mindset and grit in Chapterare really important for anyone who is interested in what makes for a good learner in general.
I also liked the part in Chapterwhere Guinier points out what makes the new elite so dangerous: it legitimately thinks it deserves its success, while the old elite had been able to "recognise that it had been privileged by the accident of birth," and so had felt obligated to give back to the community and 'send the elevator back down'.
This is a concept that I keep coming back to when talking on this topic with my friends: We can't ask that the new elite step down we only ask that they recognise how they got there.
Overall, a wellresearched book on an extremely important topic, but won't tell you much that you don't already instinctively understand, I had wanted to read this book since it first appeared many years ago, I like Ms Guinier's style of writing and think that she is a sharp intellectual, While I do not agree with everything in this book I like her depth of research, citations and references, contextualization, and strength of argument, As a scientist and STEM scholar with experience in several academic institutions both HBCU and PWI, some of the generalizations on how African Americans ring hollow and far too theoretical particularly from the Ivy League perspective.
Fortunately, this is not the majority of the book, It is an insightful and worthwhile look at how the elite and the "favorite dark child elite" view the future and potential solutions for higher education, Lani Guinier's new book The Tyranny of the Meritocracy will be of interest to many in the connectivist circles where I run, We believe that individual knowledge is created in social contexts and through social interaction, We prize collaboration skills. We've heard it all, and buy it that this is an increasingly connected age, that good jobs will involve work in teams, that globalization and demographic change will require the abilities to negotiate diversity, that the "problems of the twentyfirst century" are only solvable by multidisciplinary teams, that in fact many of those social and political problems have roots in people who can't communicate outside themselves or their home group.
We want to work for an America for a world where all people have equal prospects regardless of the color of their skin and circumstances of their birth,
Then we exist in an educational system which mostly rewards people for individual accomplishment, and trains them accordingly in individualistic methods which are remarkably vulnerable to the privileges of class and race.
Guinier points out that this is out of step, She uses Amartya Sen's definition that merit is the "incentive system which rewards the actions a society values" and points out the stunning disconnect between the skills we claim to value for democracy, and the "testocratic" skills of the KPh.
D system. This focus on individualized tests and grades actually serves to reinforce power relationships in society first, because those with the means to impact curricula or hire tutors
have a massive incentive to do so, and perhaps more ominously, because students who succeed in the testocracy are allowed to believe that they have achieved success alone, without noting the assistance of their teachers, parents, and classmates.
More democratic education would do a better job of reinforcing the importance of working together across difference and provide that benefit more equitably to those locked out of our current system.
The argument against the SAT is ironclad, It predicts family income and race much better than grades in the first year of college, and was never designed to assess anything further out than the first year, Yet I found Guinier's hope for a system like the Posse Foundation's Dynamic Assessment Process a bit optimistic, Surely, if elite colleges shifted admissions to some form of behavioral interview, it would create a market for coaching, Such tutoring might be more socially valuable than classes on "SAT words" and how to answer a multiple choice question, but it would still be unevenly distributed, We can already see this in admissions processes which do value extracurricular and community involvement, Anyone can take such opportunities, and it makes the admissions process better to consider them, Kids whose families don't need them to work, or whose parents can shuttle them from school to club to volunteer site, can take advantage of more of them, It might still be better than the system we've got, but not quite as diverse as Guinier argues,
Guinier goes on to suggest alternatives in college preparation, recruitment, and pedagogy, As someone who works with college professors on teaching issues, it's easy for me to hear the argument that we need to make changes in Kschools and the college admissions office.
It's always easier when someone else has to change, Then she points out that it wouldn't be fair to bring students into college for their collaborative skills, and demand of them the same individualized pedagogy we tend to use now.
Students selected for democratic skills will prosper most in a democratic classroom, Oh. That's a challenge.
It struck me as interesting that the models here weren't particularly new to me, It seems impossible to readarticles on improving college teaching without someone bringing up the peer instruction work of Eric Mazur, as Guinier does, Yet most of the work in the "blended learning" sphere focuses simply on how group work and class discussion is better for retention and transfer of domain knowledge, That's an easy sell it's harder to talk about the idea that you might actually shift your learning goals in a collaborative classroom, Guinier's frames these potentially fractious issues within the purpose of higher education in a democracy, and if you've accepted the assertion through the first half of the book,
Of course, the assertion that college exists to develop good citizens is not universally accepted.
Even among those who accept the general idea, we debate exactly what the proper components of a liberal education are, Guinier asserts that colleges exist to fill a democratic need, without much considering the counterarguments, and other than skills related to diversity and teamwork, she doesn't have specific recommendations for a curriculum.
Given how much we hear about colleges as paths to "good jobs", though, or how much "student development" can be taken for granted within the academy, Guinier provides a clear argument, crisply stated and well worth the read.
.