I taught a course called "Tests and Measurements" many times. I experienced many situations where a student or a teacher or parents equated the grade point or the class rank with a person's basic worth. I have certainly seen similar approaches with money. If you have more money than I do, you might be worth more than I am.
When I ask people who have more money than me, if I am worth less than they are, they usually say "Of course, not." I admit that for many people, the question of comparative worth needs clarification. They may ask "worth less in what way" or "worth less to whom." Many Americans are basically committed to some sort of equality between people, at least in the opening exchanges about worth. But various experiences and convictions have left me rather soured on so-called "measurement".
But today, in "How We Got to Now" by Steven Johnson, I read
"New ways of measuring create new ways of making. The ability to measure bacterial content allowed a completely new set of approaches to the challenges of public health. Before the adoption of these units of measurement, you had to test improvements to the water system the old-fashioned way: you built a new sewer or reservoir or pipe, and you sat around and waited to see if fewer people would die."
— How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson
I have seen plenty of salutes to measurement and what it can do. I want to take a moment and add my respects to attempts to measure. It is, indeed, possible to confuse a measure with the item measured. In a modern world where there is plenty of communication and still only 24 hours in a day, reducing a person to his bank balance or his class rank can be a quick way of deciding how much attention to pay to that guy. It takes more thought and noticing to see a person's personality than to just get a number or two but there are times when numbers help understand the world more clearly.
