San Francisco spent a decade without 8th-grade algebra. Boston spent five years without an entrance exam at its most competitive public schools. Both are now being rolled back.
The anti-merit experiment is ending the way failed experiments usually do: quietly, with no one taking responsibility. 's tallies the damage in .
Those who dismantled merit-based schooling promised to close gaps. Instead, they deprived high achievers of instruction at their level and left struggling students no better off. Parents discovered their kids couldn't compete for college admission because their schools had gutted advanced coursework.
The receipts kept piling up. A 2022 study of Texas students found that grouping kids by achievement level lifted scores at the top without harming students at the bottom — and that the grouping was driven by test scores, not race or income.
Democratic pollsters underscored the verdict: their 2024 postmortem found that ending achievement-based grouping was the single most unpopular K–12 policy they tested at net -39.
Every kid deserves to be taught at the level they're ready for. That used to be uncontroversial. Thankfully, it's becoming uncontroversial again.
Post
Conversation
Post your reply