> Our schooling and educational systems are very merit based.

I'm not sure where' you're based, but that's certainly not the case where I live. I once worked for a company that made grading software. I quit after 3 months because they wanted to implement features like, "Teacher wants to be able to change grade to a specific letter, even if student's scores add up to a different letter grade." (In other words, even though this student received an "A" based on test scores, I want them to have a "C" instead. Or vice-versa.)

I took Calculus AB in high school and the teacher was notorious for giving students D's and F's because of his teaching style was poor and the exams were difficult. The only saving grace from that class was that you would be given a C if you scored a 4+ on the AP exam.

He still kept his job because majority of the class got 4+'s on those exams, despite at least 1/3 of his class getting D's and F's.

I wouldn't generalize editing letter grades as a way of "cheating the system". There's usually good intentions in every act.

In general a student should be able to calculate his own grade given available information so that acts as a buffer to this sort of "grade editing." In general teachers won't do this due the fact that it can easily be found out.

>One could say that in the work place, success is uncorrelated with merit.

Do you truly believe this? In my career experience, success is highly correlated with merit. Sure, I have seen plenty of incompetence at high positions, and I've seen brilliant people who received little success in their careers.

But overall, I'd say the correlation is very high.

I would be willing to bet that advancement to any given level correlates with a certain base level of merit. However, I would also guess that the higher up one goes, the thing that correlates best would be luck. I have no empirical evidence for this other than myself and what I know of people around me, but it definitely rings true to me.

Edit: what a coincidence this is on the front page right now: http://theconversation.com/huge-success-in-business-is-large...

You're right. What I mean is, a lot of workplace advancements happen not because of success, more-so than education.

Obviously at the very least some advancements happen due to merit and due to that, there is a correlation.

School and workplace is just an example of two very different merit systems. One is not inherently more right than the other.

Never said one is more right. But merit in the workplace is not quantitatively measured in any form.