Word: klitgaard
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. But these advantages tend to be small and transitory, especially when compared with the weight that anxious parents and students attribute to them. "For certain kinds of jobs, a Harvard degree might help you get a foot in the door," says economist Robert Klitgaard, the author of Choosing Elites. "But if you look at outcomes -- earnings and social status -- it is very hard to make the case that going to Harvard is worth eight times going to UCLA, which is roughly the difference in their tuitions...
...proposition that standardized tests are not biased against Blacks is only true in the narrow sense that they do not underpredict their later academic success. But Klitgaard does not examine the other possible biases of these test although there is a growing body of evidence demonstrating them. Journalist David Owen's recent devastating attack on the validity of the SAT, for example, shows that contrary to popular assumptions, students can be coached to do better on standardized tests--perhaps even to the tune of 100 points. Not withstanding the considerable doubt such findings cast on the notion...
Generally speaking, Klitgaard's book is dogged by the possibility that he is merely setting up a framework for the perpetuation of the current elite structure in this country. Two stark facts stare from his analysis. One is that test scores and grades are the only indicator that can satisfactorily predict academic success in college. The other is that, this said, there is little that can help us predict success in later life. But isn't this latter kind of success exactly the kind of success we are most interested in fostering? Because this type cannot be predicted adequately, Klitgaard...
...danger exists, under Klitgaard's suggestions, that we may be tyrannized by excessive devotion to a flawed method of selection in order to select an elite class based on the wrong principles Klitgaard aptly quotes psychologis David McClelland on this point: the testing movement is in grave danger of perpetuating a mythological meritocracy in which none of the measures of merit bears a significant demonstrable validity with respect to any measures outside the charmed circle...
...academic performance. One wishes the author had further developed this point, for it is a crucial one. It is indeed difficult to imagine few more pressing social problems than how we select our future elite--both effectively and fairly. Klitgaard superbly addresses the practical problems of effective choice. But if the net result of this effort is an affirmation of a flawed status quo, then, one wonders, why bother...