Is Meritocracy a Sham? | Amanpour and Company

The society that fails to invest in its people, does so at its own risk.

He had me at “It’s not good to make policy based on exceptional cases.” I could not have articulated it better!

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." -- George Carlin.

There should be no elite schools in the public school system - they should all be good - and that requires well paid teachers. Finland pays the second highest public wage to teachers - bellow only the doctors' wages. That and the fact teachers have 3 months of vacation has made the profession the dream work for most people. When a child is born, in Finland, the family receives a cardboard box with some clothes and toys for the baby - for all babies, rich or poor: they do this because Finland was a poor country in the early 20th century and that's what they did back then and they keep doing it as a reminder that everybody is equal. The cardboard box was to protect the baby from the cold currents inside the house.

Once kids are out of school it depends on who you know! The rich network stick together.

Amanpour and Company is one of the most interesting and relevant news shows out there (which explains the low viewership). I hope this anomaly of a program can find a way to keep going. We need it.

I work at a private school, and I see this ALL the time. I have students that are completely average, BUT they get private tutors in everything. The moment their grade slips to a "B" or lower, they get a tutor for $150/hr who literally does their homework/ projects with them. If they start to struggle in ANY way, we teachers meet with their parents or tutors to arrange a plan to help them. These kids do not have learning disabilities, they do not need IEPs. After school, they're enrolled in a ridiculous amount of extracurricular activities to make them competitive for high school applications. I've had one parent tell me, he spends $4000 per month on his two kids for after-school activities. The result of all this: my students tend to be extremely anxious (I've had 6 year olds in therapy) and unnecessarily entitled with no sense of resilience. The moment something is hard, they look to blame someone for their problems, and we teachers are constantly scrutinized for our choices. It is a stressful system, and no one is winning long term.

This system is how you get ivanka Trump saying with a straight face that poor people like to work for their money. Like you ever did in your life time Ivanka.

Poor kids have to be smart enough to go to college while holding down a job. Rich don't. Insanity.

Kudos to Mr. Markovits for being able to see his own privilege--and for speaking out so effectively.

"A structural system that excluded you" The best description of America and meritocracy .

So true when he says that elite parents know HOW to train their kids (what is important, what sort of experiences should they have, what should they read what conversations they hear around the dinner table) and have the resources to train their kids, and train them like other parents cannot. As a high school teacher, I see how absolutely true this. "They know how to train their kids like nobody´s business and they out train....."

Amazing. Thank you Prof. Markovits. I raised my kids in Spain. When we returned, my daughter took the ACT and got a 26. A friend told me that everyone takes their kid to an academy to get the score they want. When I took my daughter there, they told me that for $3000 they could get her a score of 30-32 within 2 months! I was aghast and made my daughter take and retake the test on her own with a prep book. Then, I hired a math tutor ($1000) and after those two months, she got a 30. As she said after opening that envelope, "I'm no smarter now than when I got a 26." When my son took a prep class, the teacher of the class said that he didn't do too well on the test at first, but now that he has experience, can get a 36 every time.

Another excellent interview by Amanpour & Company. Exactly what we would expect from one of the most trusted & respected journalists on the planet today. And she has built a quality team of interviewers & reporters, like Hari Sreenivasan, to help inform viewers who are tired of mainstream news outlets with their brief, shallow and sensational news reportage. We want depth, we want critique and we want possible alternative solutions to our nation's growing list of failing socioeconomic systems & institutions. We want journalism!

In the U.S., we do not have a sense of connection to each other. Everyone is for himself/herself.

I attended an elite private college and a state college. There is absolutely a difference in the quality of education. At the large public college, even the highly rated ones, you had to compete and be a “star” student to receive access to the best teachers and the types of opportunities that almost every student received as a matter of course as a student at an elite college.

This is actually a very old argument. Charles Dickens said basically the same thing in the 19th century.

Wow! This man has good insights. He is articulate and convincing. I’ve never considered these things as mechanisms of class and wealth. Thanks.

Markovits is right. Meritocracy is structured as a system of training individuals Through 1) The family unit - a parental intellectual, material and economic apprenticeship system of sorts for the offspring. 2) secondary schools-privateprep prep schools and suburban public schools that get their students ready for colleges and careers 3) Elite colleges/universities - selective higher education turns their students into future financiers , lawyers, politicians , doctors not only by providing coursework and top tier instruction but a networking system as well as system of networking for graduates. All three produce a system that funnels its participants into position and careers either at the top or near the top. Lower middle class, working class and poor don't have a chance in America.

You can't start fixing this problem with the colleges. We have to start fixing it in preschool.