Word: klitgaards
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...storm Mass. Hall on an October day in 1980 to protest the report, written by a special assistant to then-University president Derek C. Bok. The report suggested that black students and women at the University perform poorer academically than their test scores would predict.The assistant, Robert E. Klitgaard ’68, also suggested in his findings that affirmative action might not be working, that it’s unclear whether diversity benefits a university, and that Jewish students—unlike their black and female peers—perform better than their test scores indicate. But the Klitgaard...
...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...
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...