Asian student confesses: 'we work harder'
 

An Asian student confesses -- 'we work harder'
Larry Elder

April 21, 2005


Why do students from some racial or ethnic groups outperform students from other racial or ethnic groups?

_Don't bother raising that question at California's Alhambra High School, where Asians make up 54 percent of the population and Latinos 38 percent. On the school's 2004 STAR Test, which measures student proficiency, Asian students' scores in English Language Arts for the 11th grade are 44 percent, with Latinos scoring 26 percent. In Mathematics, Asians in Algebra I scored 49 percent, and Latinos 12 percent. In Algebra II, Asians scored 55 percent, with Latinos at 19 percent. For Geometry, Asians scored 51 percent, and Latinos 11 percent.

_Robin Zhou, a senior, wrote a school newspaper column called "Latinos Lag Behind in Academics." Zhou asked, "So why are our Advanced Placement classes 90 percent Asian? Two factors contribute significantly that influence students' academic progress from the first year of school. The first is cultural: many Asian parents, especially recent immigrants, push their children to move toward academic success, while Hispanic parents are well-meaning but less active. Since kids are concerned mainly with the present, little parental involvement often means they fail to realize that school is not an end in itself but a bridge to better things.

_ "Given that Asian students are often pushed harder and more consistently by their parents, it's not surprising that a performance gap already exists by middle school. . . . The second factor maintaining the performance gap appears around then, the deliberate segregation of previously uniform student bodies into white- and blue-collar castes."

_For respectfully pointing out the elephant in the room, Zhou received threats. Some students -- and at least one teacher -- called him racist! Never mind that Zhou carefully wrote the article to avoid offense. "Using past scores as a measure," he carefully wrote, "are Hispanic students not pulling their weight? The answer is clearly no. To deny that the Hispanic student population as a whole lags behind its Asian counterpart would be ignoring the cold statistical truth. Is this suggesting that brown people cannot think on the level of white and yellow people? Absolutely not. [Emphasis added.] But the difference is real, and it needs to be acknowledged and explained before it can be erased."

_Consider the plight of Scott Phelps, a teacher at Muir High School in Pasadena, Calif., for 12 years. Phelps posted an e-mail in a school district chat room -- later distributing it to his fellow teachers -- discussing recent scores of the school's students on the Academic Performance Index. He committed the politically incorrect sin of wondering why low socio-economic African-American students, as a group, have historically scored lower on standardized tests, and why many seemed to lack academic focus. "If you look at their scores and track them over the years, you will see that they're horrible," said Phelps. "I'm not singling out a group. I'm not saying that low test scores are caused by low socio-economic students, I'm saying that low scores and low socio-economic students are directly related."

_Further, Phelps had the audacity to suggest that of the students who engage in disruptive behavior, black students are disproportionately involved. "Overwhelmingly," Phelps wrote, "the students whose behavior makes the hallways deafening, who yell out for the teacher and demand immediate attention in class, who cannot seem to stop chatting and are fascinated by each other and relationships but not with academics, in short, whose behavior saps the strength and energy of us that are at the front lines, are African American. . . . Eventually, someone in power will have the courage to say this publicly. . . . Class is something they do between passing periods, lunch or nutrition break, when they chase each other in the hallways, into classrooms, yelling at the top of their lungs."

_The resulting uproar got Phelps suspended. The school board reinstated him only after town hall meetings in which parents and even some black students and teachers demanded that the popular and widely respected teacher return.

_I have a friend who lives in mid-town Los Angeles. Years ago, he invited me to visit a small library at the corner of Olympic and Vermont, an area between the high-rises of downtown and Koreatown. It is about 70 percent Hispanic and 20 percent Asian. At around four-o'clock in the afternoon, outside the library, several Hispanic kids performed incredible tricks on their skateboards. They were jumping, spinning, twirling and showing off their considerable skills. My friend then said, "C'mon, Larry, let's go inside." Inside the library -- standing room only -- were Korean-American kids and their mothers. Not one Latino kid inside the library. Not one.

_The diversity/inclusion/multicultural crowd wants not only equal rights. They want equal results. But results require hard work, sacrifice and discipline. Either that, or a really good government program.

I love how Asians are STILL lumped in as a whole...

I'd venture to say that a lot of non-Asians would, say, group Filipinos in the same group of other Asians who "work harder" like Koreans, Chinese and Japanese, and comparing our cultures for similarities is often laughable.

I really don't know how to respond other than facts are facts, and test scores are test scores. But I'm not going to assume that blacks and hispanics are TOTALLY uninterested in the academic part in school.

Maybe Asians are just TOO involved. Amongst our age, suicide is highest amongst Asians....and that's greatly attributed to the pressure Asian parents place on their kids to succeed.

Since my mom never did that with me, and I come from a much poorer background, just the fact that I made it to college seems to be fine, probably cause she knows I want more than that anyway......

"I don't play the violin, I didn't get straight A's, I didnt fucking sleep with Woody Allen"
--Margaret Cho

Well you know, we are all monolithic.

It's usually a separation between Asian and pacific islander isn't it?

-Rudey

Asian kids are also likely to take more math and science courses, making it easier to have higher grades. It's pretty impossible to get 100% on an English test when you have to write a "well organized essay," but 100% is possible in advanced algebra.

Re: Asian student confesses: 'we work harder'
 

THIS is where all the attention needs to be paid.

Re: Asian student confesses: 'we work harder'
 

Any speculation to why this is? I'm curious.

uuhhhhhhhh......how does more asian people make it easier to get a high grade? if my class was predominantly asian, that doesn't have shit to do with how well i perform.

Re: Re: Asian student confesses: 'we work harder'
 

In part, and I know there is some improvement, it is related to the out-of-wedlock births.

No father means no money, which means no books in the home, no quality family time if the mother is working, children raised by grandparents, etc.

It's also related to attitude: if you think your problems are caused by others - and your leaders continually reinforce that thought - you're not likely to get your butt to work and pull yourself up by the shoelaces.

"I am somebody" should be replaced by "I got a job"

Re: Re: Re: Asian student confesses: 'we work harder'
 

And don't forget that many of the parents of these kids didn't finish high school, and unless the child is highly motivated, it's very likely that he/she will fall into the same trap.

There are also factors like: lack of nutrition, lack of heat, frequent moves/transiency, increased stressors due to an unstable neighborhood, having to work to help contribute to the household budget (rather than to just buy the designer pair of shoes you want, which is less stressful), having to babysit younger kids in the family, or just do more things around the house that richer kids don't do because the families hire it out. Most people in higher socioeconomic status groups are well educated and therefore, place more value in education, have higher expectations, and assist more in the learning process.

I resent the working mom implications that were made. The women I work with ALL have highly intelligent kids who get very good grades, whether the women are married or not. And, all of our daughters are highly motivated to be well educated, go to good universities and have high career aspirations. Also, because we work, we aren't in a lower socio-economic situation.

Re: Re: Re: Asian student confesses: 'we work harder'
 

I agreed with the first part of what you said but,

this doesn't have a goddamned thing to do with it and if it does, maybe YOU should focus more on what the "so-called" leaders are SAYING and where they get their impressions from. The need for the statements like "I am somebody" come from the need to instill SOME kind of esteem in a bunch of young people who were born into a system and society that is F-ed up toward them through no fault of their own. Address THAT and don't worry about the flaws of the men behind the message.

Also, to assume that just because someone calls himself a leader does not make them so. They are SELF PROCLAIMED. If YOU want to make them out to be, that's you, but don't impose your sense of who is and who is not a leader onto folks you know NOTHING about.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Asian student confesses: 'we work harder'
 

For better or worse, do these "leaders" not get TV stations to show up when they hold a press conference? One could possibly blame the media for helping these people to perpetuate the stereotype of hopelessness. Why is it that dissenters with these leaders are generally thought to be running against the grain of "the community"?

I think that the problems are largely cultural, but produced and perpetuated by socioeconomic factors more than anything else (or am I just stating the obvious?).

OK - but what role do these factors play? Are these causes, or effects of the same situation on the prior generation? And, yes, it can be both - that's definitely why the issue is difficult to address.

This is circular - essentially stating, "poor people are less educated than rich people because rich people are better educated" - I guess I'd like to see more specific application of the differences this causes, if you're relating it to cyclical divergence of upper/lower-class education.

While I will certainly agree that there is an element of negative cycle ("downward spiral") associated with the situation, I think the material issues are the root causes of the correlation between socioeconomic status and educational achievement, and how to address these issues. We need to examine causation, not correlation.