“Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept — and you stop the impetus to effort in men, great or small.” So argues Ellsworth Toohey, the villain of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead. In an impassioned speech about his quest for power, Toohey reveals the goals of his socialist policies: elevate the mediocre and destroy the successful.

Efforts to remove merit-based admissions and advanced courses from all levels of the U.S. education system are just what Toohey had in mind.