Posted on 02/16/2011 7:55:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Here we go again. In a winter ritual as familiar as snow, the results of specialized high-school admissions are sparking the usual hand-wringing and finger-pointing about a shortage of "minorities" and a lack of "diversity" at the best city schools.
With the announcement that black eighth-graders make up only 5 percent of students accepted to eight specialized schools next year and Hispanic students only 6 percent, fevered accusations run the range from prejudice to prejudice. New Yorkers once again are being lectured by the media and others that the results prove the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged, which is another way of saying "white."
But facts are stubborn things, and they put the lie to those race-baiting claims.
The professional pot-stirrers can reach their conclusions only by dismissing the incredible phenomenon of Asian success. Last time I looked, Asians are nonwhite minorities, too, yet they are the superstars of New York education.
Many are also immigrants who come from poor families who do not speak English. All of which means city educrats should be celebrating their achievements and trying to duplicate them among other students.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Some New York City School stats:
* Asian Students represent only 15 percent of city students
* Asian students, including those from China, Korea, India and Pakistan, already account for upwards of 60 percent of the population at top high schools, such as Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. The pattern continues with the latest test results.
* Asians were 26 percent of the 28,211 students who qualified to take the 2011 competitive high-schools exam.
* Asians were 47 percent of those scoring well enough to get accepted.
* Non-Hispanic whites were 15 percent of test takers,
* Non-Hispanic white were 23 percent of those accepted.
* Blacks were 23 percent of test takers
* Blacks were 5 percent of those accepted.
* Hispanics were 21 percent of test takers
* Hispanics were 6 percent of those accepted.
* New York City doesn’t know the race and ethnicity of 18 percent of those accepted.
They work and study like crazy and succeed at everything they do.
It is the parents. Asian families often have two, and they expect and encourage academic success from their children.
Remember the mortgage issue?
That blacks were turned down at greater rates than whites when certain cherry picked criteria were used?
(They only used income instead of net worth in their comparison.)
Well, “Whites” were turned down at a greater rate than Asians, using the same comparison criteria. But of course, you never hear that, because that’s not part of the Agenda.
That’s exactly what the left wants to keep hidden - families matter.
Their entire agenda is to destroy the family and replace it with dependence on government.
DNA tells all.
Asian kids in NYC schools are for the most part the children of people who were smart enough, brave enough, and determined enough to come to a new country and work fiercely hard for success. They know how fortunate they are to be here because they’ve seen how much worse things are back home; they harbor no resentments about the system mistreating them. They impart these values to their children and make them work hard. This pattern is common among immigrants and their children. I know; I’m the daughter of an immigrant.
Compare and contrast with the situation of inner-city minority kids in this country. Who are their role models? Who is going to be able to motivate them and help them with their homework?
Don’t get me wrong: there are a lot of really involved, determined minority parents who are poor but are trying hard to help their kids succeed.
I suspect it’s equally, if not more, related to culture. Asian culture reinforces academic achievement, Black culture not so much. However, Thomas Sowell found big differences related to achievement among African blacks as opposed to West Indian blacks; again suggesting that culture is the key.
My wife is Asian and our daughter did quite well in school. However any racial component was cultural rather than genetic. We set and enforced standards. School work came first and what was learned was more important than grades as grades are often inflated so all can “succeed”. No means no and yes means yes. You love your kid by helping them achieve their full potential. This used to be American every bit as much as Asian.
Educrats are NOT NOT NOT going to study Asian success or try to duplicate it. Why?
Answer: Because 99.999% of Asian success is due to the AFTERSCHOOLING these kids do IN THE HOME!!!
Answer: The only thing the government schools are doing for these Asian kids is sending home a curriculum for the families, and the kids, themselves, to follow. The government eduwonks mere give tests and grade projects.
Answer: If eduwonks really studied Asian success they *KNOW** what they would find. Asian kids would likely do even better if they NEVER ATTENDED A GOVERNMENT SCHOOL!
Answer: A thorough study of Asian success would likely show that government schooling is retarding Asian progress and actually holding these kids back! ( Yes, I seriously mean this.)
Answer: Likely **all** of the students accepted to this elite government high school could and SHOULD be finishing COLLEGE at the age of 18 and moving on to graduate work instead of rotting in a government school!
Two anecdotal examples:
— A government teacher and acquaintance of mine is a high school math teacher. One of her students, an Asian, is now working on differential equations, on his own, IN THE HOME. This kid has already passed AP Calculus. Will the government school let him move on to the local college? NO!
— My three homeschoolers were in college by the ages of 13, 12, and 13. All finished all general required courses and Calculus III by the age of 15. Two were the youngest students to ever be admitted to our flagship state university and graduated with B.S. degrees in math at the age of 18. A full-page and full-color article was done on them in the university paper, other articles in local papers were also done.
NO eduwonk has ever contacted out family. NO teacher has ever expressed any interest in how we accomplished this. Why?
Answer: Because they are not interested in finding out how to best educate kids. They are, though, interested in maintaining their salaries, generous vacations, benefits, and pensions.
( Not proof read.)
How is this possible in a world of “structural racism” and “white privilege”?
How is that Jews and Asians are so successful in this country? The legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act and centuries of pogroms in Europe and the Middle East seems inoperative in America.
The last thing liberals want to do is have a really honest conversation about the public school system. There are much bigger inconvenient truths than “global warming.”
An interesting observation:
Americans of German ancestry in the Midwest and German school kids in Germany and Austria have roughly the same test scores. This comes in spite of the fact that German-Americans live on a different continent and no longer speak their native language.
How is it possible that kids who live in the same town, go to the same public schools, speak the same language, celebrate the same holidays, and sit in the same classroom and get the same homework from the same teachers manage to consistently produce such intractable differences in average test scores by ancestral group whereas their peers abroad - their cousins - are so remarkably similar?
Its all about culture
also, speaking very generally, while some elite blacks and hispanics are rising, the larger equalizing factor is that whites are being dumbed-down, both academically and culturally.
I’m a little tired of the use of the demographic “Asian”. It has no meaning except in the mind of people who don’t think too deeply. Do the Japanese have any ethic, cultural, or religious ties to Pakistanis? How about Sri Lankans and Mongolians? What about Koreans and Israelis? Russians and Filipinos? They’re all “Asian” but may not be perceived or reported that way. The point is that data presented the way it is currently being done is useless and misleading at best, and needs to be broken down into some meaningful measure.
Why don't these pot-stirrers ever ask the 5% or 6% of black and hispanic youths what they did to become accepted to these schools?
I keep hearing these stories all the time: "only x % of blacks passed a test" or "only x% of hispanics were accepted into some school", but you never hear these race hustlers ask the few who are accepted into schools or pass tests what their "secret" is.
The reason why is obvious -- these troublemakers will not like the answers they will hear, especially when those answers won't fit the "racism" template.
Then let’s say east-Asian, or (horrors) that old term “Oriental.”
A very good friend’s mother is Japanese and her father is white American. That term really bugs her, so I use it often. I was walking through a neighborhood in Beijing when ahead I saw two black men talking. I thought, “There’s something you don’t see everyday, black Americans in China - I think I’ll go say hello.” As I walk up to them I realized they were speaking Chinese, and there a couple of mixed race kids playing nearby. Blew me away - black Chinese - I never even thought of it. My point is that we make an awful lot of assumptions based on some pretty flimsy evidence...
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