Something really worth worrying about …

… ‘The Meritocracy Trap’ Review: Squeezing Through the Narrow Door - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

…  in my view he overrates the quality—the merit, you might say—of education that underlies and reinforces the new meritocracy. Mr. Markovits shows that elite educational institutions at all stages spend more per student, that they have smaller student-teacher ratios, and that they result in higher SAT scores allowing students to gain admission to elite universities. But what if much of this added expenditure is spent on recreation facilities, computer centers, so-called cultural enrichment and counselling salaries; what does it matter if there are more teachers per pupil if the teachers themselves are not extraordinary; what does a higher SAT score mean except that one is good at taking the SAT, and in some cases preparing for it, as Mr. Markovits records, with the aid of $600-per-hour tutoring; and what, finally, if the elite schools aren’t really in fact all that intrinsically splendid but flourish largely owing to snobbery?

Those among the elite that I have encountered are certainly well-trained. But I get little sense that they are educated.