Abstract
In this monthly column, Kappan authors discuss books and articles that have informed their views on education. Victoria Cain recommends The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy by Nicholas Lemann. Nancy Gutiérrez recommends Subtractve Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring. And Justin Reich recommends the Sociology of Education article, “Comment: The first and second digital divides” by Paul Attewell.
Keywords
Students usually consider the SAT something to be endured not studied. Reading Nicholas Lemann’s The Big Test, an alarming history of the rise of American meritocracy, usually changes their minds. Lemann uses the history of the Educational Testing Service and its most famous product, the SAT, to chronicle tectonic shifts in 20th-century American society: the displacement of a WASP-y elite by a striving professional class, the rise and fall of affirmative action, and the ongoing question of how to confront entrenched social and educational inequities.
Though the book was published in 1999, my students still love to read it, thanks to Lemann’s deft prose and beautifully rendered characters. And I still love to teach with it, for Lemann’s expansive history raises evergreen questions for class discussion: How should we apportion scarce educational resources? Is meritocracy possible or desirable? Is our current system of higher education fair — and if not, what will we do about it?