American kids aren't being punished it's just that the American born Asian and Indian childrens' parents are more focused on education than all the other crap......
And for what it's worth, the children we are talking about here are likely second generation born Americans of parents born here of parents who immigrated here.......
So to answer your question "Why are American kids being punished", they're not........
American kids ARE being punished. If you elect to play baseball instead of taking a college course in fluid mechanics during the summer between ninth and tenth grade, you’re going to lose your slot in the smart school to the Chinese-style study camp prisoner.
America doesn’t educate its children that way, and yet somehow we’ve always produced the best and the brightest in science and technology. Why do we have to change our culture — which includes our school system — to reflect how foreigners want their children to be educated?
If the parents of 2nd generation Americans want to give up their kids’ childhoods and imprison them in foreign-style study camps, be my guest — at their own expense, in private schools.
No kid with excellent grades and test scores should be denied a slot in a public school because the bar was artificially and unnecessarily raised by parents who are gaming the system.