Posted on 07/13/2008 7:01:08 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
Asian American students will outnumber white classmates for the first time in the freshman class at the region's most prestigious public magnet school this fall, a milestone reached as the number of African Americans and Hispanics has remained low and the Fairfax County School Board prepares to review the school's admission policy.
At Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in the Alexandria area this year, more than 2,500 applicants vied for 485 seats. Asian American students got 219, or 45 percent of the total, while white students got 205, or 42 percent. About 38 percent of the school's students were Asian American in the past school year.
T.J., as the school is known, draws students from several Northern Virginia jurisdictions. It ranks among the nation's top public schools in some surveys because of its rigorous curriculum and high-achieving students. Its average combined SAT score in 2007 was 2155, compared with 1639 countywide. More than 150 of its students that year were semifinalists for National Merit scholarships.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I’d imagine that criteria based on aptitude and achievement would tend to allow a lot of Asians in. They wouldn’t need affirmative action because education is valued in Asian cultures and they work hard from a young age. Some other groups whose cultures don’t stress it as much would.
In protest, angry whites took to the streets, looting and burning stores owned by Asians. /s
I guess drawing from 2 billion, you can match at a rate of 50%, including the slots given to “other minorities” which clearly don’t affect Asian enrollment.
The well-intended machine whites built will end up making them poor.
UC Berkeley looks like China U, but they earned it. Under affirmative action, Asian entrants would have to be reduced, that’s why you don’t see too many Asians in the hang Ward Connerly parade.
These stories are important. They prove emphasis on education and hard work=the American dream. I'm generalizing, of course. But, Asian teens don't get pregnant out of wedlock. Don't commit felonies. Learn to speak English without bilingual education. Don't cry discrimination about standardized testing. They are living proof the education system in this country can work just fine if only parents and kids choose to take advantage.
There is no such thing as "model minorities." Every group has problems. There are Asian gang bangers. However, next time you have an opportunity take a look in your local newspaper. See who wins spelling, geography and science bees. There must be a good reason MIT stands for "made in Taiwan."
There is no question that what you say is true. So much of performance comes down to cultural values and Asians value hard work and education more than any other group in the US. If black americans had a new generation of positive leaders who stressed the right things they too could see tremendous gains in achievement within a couple of generations. Sadly their current leaders would rather beg for handouts.
The study ethic is probably the biggest cause of academic success.
A lot of white parents complain about not having enough time for extracurricular activities to build up college resumes. But most of their kids can read.
A lot of black kids complain about having homework, but cannot read.
A lot of Asian kids complain about homework, and Mom says shut up and get it done, cram school is in an hour.
Education starts and ends at home. This is about culture. Not race or ethnicity. You allow me to spend a half hour in a kid's home and I will tell you what kind of student is present.
This is it right here. My kids go to a public school. They get good grades, too. My kids can read just fine, and do math, and know history, and all that stuff. My oldest can read better than a lot of adults I know, and understand what she reads better, too.
As far as values, we don't depend on the school system alone to teach them those. That's our job. Some things, we tell our kids the schools are wrong, and we tell them why. Most important, we try to teach our kids the things that will lead them to the right decisions on their own, because parents can't do it forever. That's what's really missing from kids today. No one's taught them *how to make their own decisions* and how to *solve problems on their own*. Some confuse letting them make *all* their decisions with *teaching them to make good decisions*. Not the same thing.
On the subject of Asian kids, I traded off summer school transportation with an Asian family this summer for about three weeks. The Asian mother (who spoke English well, but with a heavy accent) picked up my daughter along with hers and took them to school in the morning, and I picked up her daughter (who doesn't have much accent at all) along with mine and took her home in the afternoon, about a block from where I live.
This girl and her parents are from Hong Kong, here legally, to stay, as I understand. She speaks English just fine, is a good kid as far as I know and have otherwise observed, and works at the family business (a small Chinese take-out place) on weekends, and babysits for younger family on weekdays. Her grades are nearly as good as my child's, and they've only been in the States seven years, in public schools. No public assistance or welfare with this family.
Kinda makes you realize that not all the problems in public schools are in the schools themselves. They have their share, but, my wife's a teacher, and at least half of the problems with America's schools are the parents of the kids in them.
When you compare Latinos you see the same thing. Obviously,generalizing. But, living in S. Fla. for years you would see this value for education in Cuban-American homes. A far cry from what you see here in Texas with Mexican-Americans. There simply isn't a culture of valuing education. A lot of it is the fact that kids needed to quit school and work in the fields. However, did you know that each successive generation of Mexican-Americans has a higher dropout rate than the previous. It's not racial. It's not ethnic. It's cultural
Have you ever seen the question posed by former Dem Gov. Dick Lamm of Colorado? He posted this in the student newspaper at the University of Denver and got it pulled. If you could wave a magic wand and get one of two wishes which would you choose? 1)Rid the US of all White racism or 2) Spread the Jewish or Japanese work ethic and love for education throughout the ghettos and barrios of America?
Pretty simple choice from where I sit. Someone ought to pose that question to Obama.
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