Posted on 11/29/2005 11:38:54 AM PST by JZelle
"The New White Flight" was the title of an eye-opening article in the Nov. 20 Wall Street Journal. It was about a high school in Cupertino, Calif., where a growing Asian-American student population is causing rising academic standards -- and causing many white parents to withdraw their children from the school and some to move away. The school has some of the state's highest test scores. Though everybody favors high academic standards in the abstract, not everyone favors struggling to meet them. One white mother taking her son to an after-school soccer game noticed all the Asian-American parents arriving to take their children to an after-school study program. A few years of her son playing soccer while the Asian kids were hitting the books would be bound to create academic disparities. The phrase "white flight" is completely misleading. All over the world and throughout history, groups have collected together with people like themselves, whether by race, income, education, religion or any number of other characteristics. There is nothing unique when white people do it.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
You reap what you sow.
A few years of her son playing soccer while the Asian kids were hitting the books would be bound to create academic disparities.
Which kid is more likely to be well-adjusted 10 years down the road?
He's in the Catholic school now ;)
Which kid will make thousands more? ;)
The kid with the education.
In 10 years, typical American soccer-kid will be angry, bitter and marginally employed.
The kid with the education will be a college graduate, fully employed, with a hopeful attitude about the future.
Just a generalization, mind you.
The one who has the better job.
Any kid with an education can get a job, and I'd say the soccer player can go to college just like anyone else. But the kid who has had his parents riding him since he was old enough to walk, who has had little time for anything fun, who has few friends or interests beyond school, is much more likely to be depressed, alcoholic, and maybe suicidal. I've seen it happen.
Maybe, maybe not, but there's such a thing as balance.
Ah yes, money is everything, and he who dies with the most wins.
Define well-adjusted.
That is not an easy thing to do. You've got to be something of a futurist to predict what socialization will look and feel like ten years from now.
Most asians in this country are newly arrived immigrants or the children of those immigrants. They have all that immigrant drive to forge ahead and be successful. White people have lost that. I really don't want to get in to the comparison game but I really think most white people (kids as well as parents) really place more value on their recreational time rather than education and getting ahead. They'll complete high school and go to college because it's more or less expected of them--white middle class. But education has been dummied down and even white kids aren't as literate or knowledgeable in many fields such as literature, history etc etc although their test scores may be better than the kids in the ghetto. It seems as if Asian families are quite obvious in their pursuit of education. I'll be a bit crass here; little Buffy Muffy and Todd from the burbs want to study drama or expressive this that or the other when they go to college while the Wangs, the Changs and the Lees will do the science and math courses and become doctors and scientists.
For hundreds of years before public schools thousands of people homeschooled their kids. Boy what a HORRIBLE society they produced! (conservative!)
indoctrination camps is all public schools are good for...
Ping!
Ace,
That's another thing--boomer parents are very much concerned about how socially well adjusted their little rug rats are doing. That concern is good--but because BUFFY MUFFY AND TOOD are spending so much time in front of their computer with Nintendo etc. or listening to their ipods they are doing less and less socializing face to face with their friends and the world at large----so even with all that parental concern well adjustment is still in doubt.
The people I know like this are the ones whose parents thought it was important for them to succeed in either sports or golf.
Better than crass . . . provocative.
Wish I had seen the WSJ article. I'd like to know which Asian group they wrote about.
Do all Asians on average perform better in school than Anglos, Latinos and Blacks? Do the Hmong, the Vietnamese, the Thais, the Japanese, the Koreans perform on par with the Wangs, Changs and Lees?
I'm laughing.
Car washes are littered with "athletes".
The biggest drinkers at my high school and college were "athletes". In my grad school (MBA), the intellectual Korean students rose above the rest of us. They worked harder and partied less.
Sure, there's a balance between body, mind and spirit, but answer me this:
How many jobs have listed "Soccer Experience?" on the employment form?
And yet, every year the "Educational Experience:" section gets more and more space. Hmmmmm.....
Well, you can look at Korea and Japan, two countries with high rates of alcoholism. I just don't think we want to live in a society like that.
Well, of course a lot of kids are coddled these days. I won't defend lazy brats who simply won't work and won't try to get ahead. I just think balance is an often overlooked part of life.
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