Excellence

Is America a ‘Country of Lords’?

The Next Big Idea, 14 September 2026. The book comes up at 38 min 29 sec in.

Kim Phillips-Fine briefly mentions John Gardner's book while discussing post-WWII meritocracy and the origins of the SAT. She notes Gardner, who later served in Lyndon Johnson's administration, explored how educational excellence could coexist with expanded opportunity—capturing both the utopian liberal quality and the hierarchical presumptions embedded in meritocratic thinking of that era.

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