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                    Cartoon by Wilhelm Busch

Now, let's be logical
about performance evaluation
. . . and about discrimination
A special message from friendly, handsome, logical David Gaus

IN IRAQ, THOUGH, the joke is cruel and complex.
       It�s a tale of two countries. A pampered elite in the US has created bloody chaos in Iraq, and that pampering occurred at supposedly first-rate US colleges. And Iraq is only one indication of a broader American problem with what, both in academia and in the workplace, can fairly be called �neo-discrimination.�
     The problem, as we will see, is a problem of functionality as well as of fairness�and also an interesting problem in applied math.
        Let start specifically with academia and with functionality in Iraq. While international affairs may be complex, the politics, economics, language and culture of the Middle East aren�t, for the most part, secret. The information is available, but learning it takes effort. That effort isn�t being required by the �top� schools, and other schools are following suit.
         And, if we don't know much about the people we're trying to deal with in the Middle East, that's not the only problem. We also no longer know much about ourselves, the West. In former times, at places such as Harvard, one was supposed to learn about Western history, philosophy, and science.
         But, today, whether that Harvard grad actually knows anything or not may be irrelevant to his chances of getting that top job at the State Department. The eventual impact from such a placement may take place in far off countries and may be known to few. But, were one, who wasn't an insider, somehow able to rrace that impact of brazen ignorance on specific foregin events, one's humanitiy might mot approve.
           That brings us to our main theme: students remain ignorant these days because they are coddled by grade inflation. Could we say this:
       "For at least a decade, students at top-rated schools have simply failed to absorb enough information to function adequately at important jobs?"

While I�m afraid I can�t completely exonerate my own alma matter in this regard, other schools, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, etc., probably deserve greater specific blame for Iraq.
        Harvard and Yale, after all, educated President Bush.
         But grade inflation has become a problem at colleges and universities all across the country and the damaging consequences aren�t limited to Iraq.
       Grade inflation has become a new means of discrimination. That's because when some are given unrealistic, noncompetitive, high grades, others are relegated to a lower status by default. To modify Bismarck�s phrasing, �grade inflation is discrimination by other means.�
       And, in my opinion, reconstituted discrimination, is a big problem these days, not only in academia, but also in the workplace.
       I wouldn�t say that the civil rights movement of my youth has been completely negated. But it has been compromised to a considerable extent.
      While minorities are affected as before under this reconstituted discrimination, minority discrimination isn�t the only prominent feature today. Desert sands of social discourse have shifted since I was young, revealing a new landscape.
       Things look different. Things ARE different.
        It�s no longer a bigoted southern white establishment that�s that is benefiting from an unfair system, but a newer, broader, reactionary establishment. It�s not that this new establishment wants to hurt anyone else--but they do want all the best for themselves. They're adverse to work themselves, but not to unearned privileges.
        That part of today's situation is--to the student of history--an old, familiar story. One group of people has always been always on top. But, since that group, is always resented, it must be either be competent at dealing with the problems of society as a whole or esle suffer demotion. In human society, revolution, whether technological or political, is a normal, ongoing process.
       So one wonders, "Do today's top dogs have what it takes to stay on top?"

At the start of 2007, it seemed to me that SOCIETY'S main problems was that preferment--whether in education or employment--often wasn't on the basis of demonstrated merit or output.

Now, to end any suspense in the mind of the reader, my own alma matter is the University of Chicago. Thorstein Veblen, who taught there, coined the term �Leisure Class� to describe a corrupt, moneyed elite that existed before the great depression. The situation today is again something like that, although there are also some differences. I can�t compete with Veblen as a wordsmith, but I suppose I�d call what I see today a �Dysfunctional Elite.�
        That Dysfunctional Elite has created the system of preferment in which performance is hardly ever a factor in the way that one is evaluated.
       President George Bush, for example, is said to evaluate people almost exclusively on the basis of the loyalty they have for him. In turn, so it is said, he sticks by them. But, for the country, there�s the question of how those Bush loyalists are performing.
        Their performance in Iraq is being demonstrated. It could be much better. And you can, of course, read about that in the papers.
       And, in my view, the problem of a Dysfunctional Elite also exists generally in the private economy of the US.
       Now, if one thinks of "performance evaluation" as a broad, social issue, academic and business discrimination can be considered in similar terms by using math.
       That is, after all, the advantage of math: it�s universal and thus may be applied broadly.
       This brings me back to the University of Chicago. As well as being a university, the University of Chicago is a large non-profit business organization. So it might be vulnerable to accusations of discrimination, both with respect to the dispensing of grades and to ts business operations. And it operates in a city where discrimination is a constant political issue. So, when I asked Larry Arbeiter, Director of Communications at Chicago, about grade inflation, my question might have deserved a better response that he gave.
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As well as being a university, the University of Chicago is a large non-profit business organization. So it might be vulnerable to accusations of discrimination, both with respect to the dispensing of grades and to ts business operations.
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