What is the Merit System?
The Merit System is a personnel system of rules and procedures, similar to civil service, which governs classified school personnel. It is based on the principle of employment and promotion on the basis of merit for the purpose of obtaining the highest efficiency and assuring the selection and retention of the best qualified persons in the service of the Sacramento County Office of Education.
Very simply, the merit system is a method of personnel management designed to promote the efficiency and economy of the service and the good of the public by providing for the selection and retention of employees, in-service promotional opportunities and other related matters on the basis of merit and fitness. Who started the Merit System? The merit (civil service) system is not new. Early in the 1800’s, “spoils” patronage was well established as a method of filling government jobs. It took the tragedy of the shooting of President Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker in 1881 to focus enough attention on the practice to spark legislative reform. Two years later, Congress passed the Civil Service Act of 1883 (the Pendleton Act), which set up the first civil service system for federal employees to guard against patronage appointments. In the following years, state and local civil service systems flourished, but it was not until 1936 that the first merit system law for school districts
