this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
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By merit??
who judges that merit? how is it defined?
I hear schools are pretty good at giving people these funny things called "tests" to assess an individual's knowledge on a certain subject. Not only are schools good at testing, I hear there is a WHOLE INDUSTRY built on creating and running them.
You know, they could give those to other people too I'll bet! In fact, I'll bet you can use them to qualify doctors, lawyers, barbers, auto mechanics and all sorts of people!
Oh wait, these are politicians. We shouldn't do that to them. I don't know why, but it just feels wrong. Never mind.
Absolutely! It's just a complete coincidence that the people who the school system is failing are barred from fixing it because in order to pass the test you have to have done well in school. It makes perfect sense.
It's not like the US has a history of refusing to educate people, and then refusing to let them participate in civic matters by gating that access behind tests. The US certainly has never, say, made passing a test a requirement to vote to disenfranchise people.
And we all know that, of course, that any test would be super effective at preventing the abuse the above article is about. You just put the question "are you sexually attracted to children," on the test. That way you'd keep out creeps. And no one would ever lie on a test. That'd be ridiculous.
I don't know why people are disagreeing. It's a perfect system!
How about a polygraph test/examination. I understand they are known to be inaccurate sometimes. I doubt someone could suppress their deeply held lifelong urges enough to fool one with a question about their sexual desires.
Setting aside the fact that polygraphs are pseudoscience mumbo jumbo that don't work in any meaningful capacity, and the results of which are really just the vibes of the person running it (with all of their bigotry/biases on full display.)
The bigger issue is that there are over thirteen thousand school districts in the US. If each school board is four people on average, that's over fifty thousand people you'd have to do polygraphs for. And that's if all you wanted to do was school boards.
Trying to get all of those people polygraphs would be an absolute logistical nightmare. There aren't that many polygraphers out there.
And we shouldn't be legitimizing polygraphs anyway. They have time and time again been shown to be absolute bunk, and to discriminate against people with issues like anxiety (or really, anyone who gets agitated when you accuse them of something). The only people who can reliably pass polygraphs are sociopaths, which feels like the opposite of what you want to be selecting for here.