It’s basically like golf handicapping. Imagine if pro sports gave the Oakland A’s a few extra runs per games when they played the Yankees because they have a lower payroll. That’s what this is. Except you wouldn’t know how many runs would be added to the score until the end of the season. I went to high school with many lower-middle/poor people (I was one of them,) despite identical neighborhoods, crime, income, etc.,) most Asians I know aced the SAT — some were 1st generation and arrived in the US from places like Laos and Vietnam and spoke no English when they arrived. They (like me,) didn’t have expensive private tutoring; their families just put an insane focus on education. The tiger mom stereotype is there for a reason. Many of these families worked 16+ hour days in small shops, with the entire family working. Most of these kids went to Ivy schools or for full-rides at the state schools. Yet non-Asians living on the same block barely graduated, if that. Yet the only difference was parental motivation and cultural background. These kids respected the teachers, did their homework to a high standard and didn’t roam around the neighborhood looking for trouble. And discrimination? Asian kids with little English in a mostly black and white lower class neighborhood — they got picked on relentlessly.
If parents value education, they find a way. Perhaps having a two parent, tightly knit family helps. If we want to really help future generations, we have to find ways to support and encourage two-parent families. That’s one of the biggest predictors of academic and social success and there is plenty of data to back it up. Limited income, educational level of the parents, crime ridden neighborhoods — somehow, statistically, Asians don’t seem to care, they find a way. Until we reverse many of the social policies created in the early 1970s that destroyed the two-parent family in certain communities, you’ll get more of the same results. Interestingly, black kids from two parent families perform just as well academically as does a white student from a two-parent family. All of these other “factors” are just noise. The problem is in the home, not with the tests.
If parents value education, they find a way. Perhaps having a two parent, tightly knit family helps. If we want to really help future generations, we have to find ways to support and encourage two-parent families. That’s one of the biggest predictors of academic and social success and there is plenty of data to back it up. Limited income, educational level of the parents, crime ridden neighborhoods — somehow, statistically, Asians don’t seem to care, they find a way. Until we reverse many of the social policies created in the early 1970s that destroyed the two-parent family in certain communities, you’ll get more of the same results. Interestingly, black kids from two parent families perform just as well academically as does a white student from a two-parent family. All of these other “factors” are just noise. The problem is in the home, not with the tests.