Jewish World Review April 21, 2005/ 12 Nisan, 5765
An Asian student confesses we work harder
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
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
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.
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