[Sonny M]

I read the Wall Street Journal article (unfortunatly I can't post it here).

It pretty much stated that whites were moving their kids out of schools because they felt their kids couldn't compete with asians and engaged in alot of nasty sterotypes.

Some of the parents had problems with the schools becoming to academic focused and emphasising math and science instead of "all around" learning.

[Qwertrew]

Sowell...what a voice of reason.

[AZRepublican]

I'd love to see a George Allen/Thomas Sowell ticket :-)

[GSlob]

Well, everyone has one's limits with regard to everything - be it the speed of running, the weight one could lift, acuity of hearing and vision, mental sharpness [IQ] and - necessarily derivative - ability to learn, the speed with which one learns, and the limits on one's capacity to learn as well. Thus everyone could indeed learn, but some will reach their limits at rudimentary reading and multiplication table within 6x6, while others would not reach theirs in MIT postdoctoral programs. And everything in between, of course. Thus the only reasonable solution would be rigorous streaming by capacity, with different curricula [and different schools] for each stream. Say, one could use the traditional set of 5 streams: retardees[IQ<=70], dullards [71<=IQ<=90], normals [91<=IQ<=110], brights [111<=IQ<=130] and the gifted [131<=IQ]. Transfer between adjacent streams ought to be made possible - both ways [one could drop down or - with effort - try to move up].

[wallace144]

This article reminded me of some movie trivia I read on IMDB.com about the movie Planet of the Apes.

"During breaks in filming, actors made up as different ape species tended to hang out together--- gorillas with gorillas, orangutans with orangutans, chimps with chimps. It wasn't required, it just naturally happened."

[okie01]

If a farmer puts all of his livestock out into one pasture, at the end of the day he will find the sheep with the sheep, the goats with the goats, the pigs with the pigs, the cattle with the cattle.

A farmer is not surprised by this phenomenon. He considers it normal.

Only a liberal would be surprised...

[Cacique]

ping

[uncbob]

Well Murray in his book "The Bell Shaped Curve" states that on average Chinese( can't remember if it was Asians in general) have IQs 15 points higher than Caucasians

[VOA]

I couldn't help but think that the white students are just the children
of geeky parents that suffered through high-school...
and now want to live vicariously through their children being rich, popular
and cool during their running of the high-school popularity gauntlet.

That sort of thing is difficult to do in a high-school in which most
of the kids (of any race) and their parents are more concerned about
academic achievement and honing analytical/scientific skills.

[DogBarkTree]

This makes me sick. The weak parents feel it's more important that their coddled brats feel good about themselves than put in the work and study like the Asian kids.

[twntaipan]

The fact that people sort themselves out in many ways is not usually a big problem -- except to those people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.

That's the money sentence in the whole article.

[x]

It pretty much stated that whites were moving their kids out of schools because they felt their kids couldn't compete with asians and engaged in alot of nasty sterotypes.

I didn't quite get that impression. The article is here.

It didn't sound like the parents whose kids left Monte Vista just wanted their children to socialize, just that they wanted a more congenial atmosphere -- a better fit for their children and their talents. What stood out in my mind were the Asian-American parents and graduates of the school who didn't like the atmosphere either, finding the competitive spirit driven by the newest arrivals.

It's not clear that ethnic groups going all out in competition with each other is the best recipe for keeping the country together. There is at least a little to be said for high school activities making the competition a bit less intense and bringing people of different groups closer together.

[WatchingInAmazement]

Thanks for posting the great Sowell article. It's a lesson in human nature that we could all well remember.

[Felis_irritable]

"A few years of her son playing soccer while the Asian kids were hitting the books would be bound to create academic disparities."

Do ya think? It's called priorities. The parents can't be all that sharp if they can't figure it out.

[RoadTest]

But the protest (by moving out) against improving educational standards reminds me of everybody clamoring to fixi Social Security before it goes broke. When President Bush tried to do just that, he got shot down.

Lets make up our minds, folks!

[Sam Cree]

*

[GVnana]

parents had problems with the schools becoming to academic focused and emphasising math and science instead of "all around" learning

"All around learning" -- the spin on public education.