Recognizing Merit

This page was last revised June 20, 2002. (AAD Home Page)

STANDARDIZED TESTS AND MERIT
INTELLIGENCE AND RACE AND GENDER
KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

STANDARDIZED TESTS AND MERIT

Long Live Meritocracy (July 29, 2002)
Change SAT? Not so Fast (November 26, 2001)
Affirmative Action Fails Again (editorial July, 13, 2001)
Testing the Right Way for Talent: High-stakes standardized tests, like the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the SAT, fail to capture the qualities most essential for success in the corporate world, such as creativity, drive and leadership, according to a new survey of 200 corporate executives of Fortune 1000 companies the National Urban League released last week.(Op/Ed Daily News yahoo.com, April 18, 2001)
Dropping the SAT? (AP News Opinion, March 15, 2001).
California College President: Drop SAT (AP News, February 17, 2001) Related Articles on SAT and Its Relation to Affirmative Action
Expert: Aptitude Tests Are Biased: He Says UM's Policy Can Correct Imbalance (The Detroit Free Press February 7, 2001).
Susan Sturm and Lani Guinier, The Future of Affirmative Action: Promoting Diversity in Education and Employment Requires Us to Rethink Testing and "Meritocracy" (Boston Review December 2000/January 2001)
The U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights released its fourth and final version of a guidebook on the use of standardized tests in admissions and other student-placement decisions. The 92-page document is largely the same as the previous draft, released in July, which was significantly altered and toned down from the highly contentious original guidelines, released in April 1999. (December 2000)
Richard Delgado, excerpts from The Coming Race War? And Other Apocalyptic Tales of America after Affirmative Action and Welfare (1996)
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing (also see the FairTest Fact Sheet on the SAT)
Stanley Fish, Selection from "Reverse Racism; Or How the Pot Got to Call the Kettle Black," Atlantic Monthly (November 1993)
Wlad Godzich, excerpts from The Culture of Literacy (1994)
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) (US Dept of Education)
William Henry, Selection from In Defense of Elitism (pp. 142-43)
Avital Ronell, excerpts from "The Uninterrogated Question of Stupidity" (differences 1996)
Statement in Support of Diversity by the Association of American Universities (April 17, 1997; includes a statement against the "mainly statistical definition of merit")
Donald Stewart, excerpts from "Standardized Testing in a National Context" (1993)
"The Tests and the Brightest: How Fair are the College Boards?" (The Atlantic Monthly; February 1980)

INTELLIGENCE RACE AND GENDER

Race, IQ, Success and Charles Murray (PBS Think Tank, October 28, 1994)
William Henry, Selection from In Defense of Elitism (pp. 135-37)

SITUATING KNOWLEDGE IN CULTURE

Antonio Gramsci, "The Organisation of Education and Culture"
William T. Yates, "Equity Management: Affirmative Action for the 21st Century" (Change, March/April 1993)

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Link to the bibliography on the topics of merit, standardized test, and systemic inequalities.