Literacy Tests

How a culture of standardized testing and censorship shuts students off from "the meritocracy".

“…meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race”

—South Carolina House Bill 3728/ Trump Executive Order/ SC Budget Proviso 1.93

Taken literally, the word meritocracy means something like “a society ruled by the concept of individual worth”. It’s an idea that is very attractive: social Darwinists can get behind it, defining “merit” as something innate; pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps types can define it as a kind of “grit” that allows self-definition and excellence through effort. It can provide a very convenient response to any all for systemic approaches to equity, because it is based on the pretense that we live in a society where if you didn’t rise to the top, it’s because you didn’t work hard enough, or you didn’t deserve it.

In a raft of conservative bills proliferating throughout the United States, based on language from the Heritage Foundation and other rightwing political groups, meritocr…