My favorite science fiction short story directly addressing this is "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut. Nails it IMHO.

American educational standards have been intentionally aimed at the toilet for decades. Demeaning the intellectually gifted as "privileged" even when they're minorities. Seeking "equity" so the collective standard is forced to be the lowest common denominator. Meaningless diplomas for the illiterate, so they won't feel "diminished." Grade promotion for the ignorant, as "social justice."

All of the facades are gone now, when parents concerned over the poor quality of education for their children are declared domestic terrorists. The only crime these parents are committing is standing in the way of the goal of reducing the populace to ignorant, pacified slugs, easily led.

You can see it everywhere you look -- the celebration of mediocrity -- the adulation of the fat, stupid and lazy -- the acceptance of permanent failure, as in the "alcoholic" (I call 'em drunks). It is also the marginalization of achievement, as is seen in the elimination of standardized testing. The days are numbered for the Taggert Bridge -- large scale catastrophic consequences are sure to follow. Galt's Gulch is found in the individual mind.

Better dead than Red.
No, "Red" doesn't mean the GOP save for some RINOs.
Me old dino hasn't been moved to recall that slogan from the Fifties for a heck of a long time.

very true.

We can't beat human nature. In Scandinavia, they have leveled the playing field as much as it can be done. Egalitarian paradise. So, how is it that 80% of doctors and nurses are women, and 80% of the engineers are men? That doesn't look very fair!
Because, if you make people free to choose anything, then they will choose what they want, by their nature. Men like to work with things. Women like to work with people. The sociologists are pissed off about this fact, because it doesn't fit their agenda. You can tell when sociologists have discovered something that is true, when they hate the result.

The only place all men are truly equal is in the graveyard. Socialist/communists and socialist/fascists have been making millions of men prematurely truly equal for some time now.

An appropriate answer to the leftists...