"Merit demands excellence and rigor. It is not, as its critics often insist, an elitist, classist or racist value."

"It acknowledges that all kids have talents. Even though talents are not distributed equally, it is our obligation as parents and teachers to nurture each child’s individual spark and make sure that all children have the chance to be the best that they can be. I learned that on the Morgantown High volleyball team. I was never going to make the Olympic team. But Coach Rice encouraged me to understand that the most valiant, healthy challenge is a personal one, to strive to do and be my best. Merit should never have become a battlefront in the culture wars. I understand the impulse to declare the system rigged when so many children, particularly Black and Hispanic children, have fallen behind academically. But the answer to racial disparities in math and reading scores and advanced academic enrollment is not to blame the game and re-rig it to favor outcomes that please certain political constituencies but do little to make life better for struggling children...."

Writes Asra Q. Nomani in "School Is for Merit" (one of a series of 12 essays in the NYT answering the question "What is school for?").

These attacks on people who are supposedly getting Critical Race Theory wrong are evidence that its proponents have failed to explain and defend it.

Here is the (latest) biased article. Journalists are now writing the same smear narrative on sincere parents. https://t.co/fJ4iTMqftI

— Asra Q. Nomani (@AsraNomani) June 15, 2021

I had more to say on this subject yesterday, in a post criticizing a NYT column called "Demonizing Critical Race Theory" (NYT). I said: "I challenge proponents of Critical Race Theory to speak to ordinary people in terms they can understand and explain the theory, why it's a theory, and what is meant by 'critical.'... Why can't that be done clearly and straightforwardly? People are right to feel anxious and suspicious about something so big and powerful that can't be talked about. To say 'In fact, I don’t even believe that most people have any real concept of what critical race theory is' is to blame the people for failing to understand what isn't being discussed clearly. That's perverse and elitist."