I was part of this project, teaching to the test. As a substitute teacher with an advanced Degree in History I was recruited to help teach tests in US history, government and civics. We went over the information in class and then after pre testing took the underperforming students into a remedial class with fewer students and more graphics than talk. In general, it worked. We improved enough on the tests that we got out of jail. Then it ended and now, 15 years later, the students are back to knowing little or nothing unless they are in AP classes. Our system is broken , perhaps never to recover.
In short, Asians are grinds - and most students are unwilling to work that hard and most parents are not willing to push their kids that hard. My school district had a lot of highly educated South and East Asians. In general, their kids were reasonably smart and very hard working - and their parents tried hard to get their kids to study hard - and it showed. My kids Honors / IB classes were ~75% South and East Asian. Frankly, rather like when I grew up 50 years earlier on the East coast, when the honors classes were majority Jewish.
My daughter's comments was that her peers had Chinese Dragon mothers and Hindu Elephant mothers and she had an American Eagle father.
I let my kids know that they should get used to it, their peers in high school would likely be their peers in the workforce (I am in tech) and they had to work hard enough to compete effectively - which was quite hard. But we didn't do the Ivy status insanity - the kids headed to the University of Washington, my daughter by early admission, my son via Running Start. They both had their Masters before they turned 22 and both work in tech.
Asians do grind, but I don't think they grind harder today than they did in 2003. So it does not explain the divergence in 90th percentile scores over the past 20 years.
The northeast Asians are apparently also relatively bright. But that also seems unlikely to have changed much in 20 years. Whatever the explanation, I hope those American Eagle dads do not become an endangered species.
I think that the popular culture has become even more hedonistic and anti-intellectual than it was earlier. To some degree academic success seems to requires stepping outside / withdrawing more from the popular culture. The highly successful Asian students that I was familiar with among my kids friends were less involved in the popular culture, the kids who were more immersed in the culture did much worse.
I tried to raise my kids more outside of the popular culture, with modest success.
Being anti-intellectual in the traditional sense is bad for academic achievement. There is a second way to be anti-intellectual which is great for it; a completely cynical view of academics as credentials. If society says get an A in calculus to get the good job, grind away until you do. If society changes its mind and says memorizing gangter rap lyrics is required for that job at Goldman Sachs, well, grind away at that.
I was an intellectual in the midst of a bunch of grinds in high school. Several of them were as smart as I, and the rest were at most a notch down. The big difference in life outcomes (as far as I can see/rationalize) is that intelligent, conformist grinds do much better in corporations/hierarchy.
In the STEM fields you have to do a lot of grinding to master the skills and knowledge base that you work upon - I was a Physcist who ended up with a Ph.D. in Engineering - Materials. You cannot avoid the grind. A daughter did Civil Engineering - Structures. Ditto. My son did MIS - Data Security. Ditto.
Of course none of this is necessarily needed if you are playing in the popular culture sphere - pop, rap, ... But that is an area with a plethora of people trying to make a name for themselves, and only a few rising to recognition. You don't have to be a singular superstar in science or engineering to make a good living. In the popular culture essentially all the rewards go to a handful of individuals.
I think it varies. I was a STEM student long before STEM education was invented (even before they called it SMET!), and worked for 45 years in "M". My experience has always been that small amounts of intelligence are more useful than large amounts of grinding. I expect that will continue into the age of AI, at least for a few more years.
I agree. I suppose I was taking advantage and shouldn't denigrate the kids who had to try harder. To me being a grind is working for the A rather than the knowledge.
It can't happen with a mature hierarchy because climbing an existing hierarchy is its own talent/skill. I guarantee the current Imams of Iran are the most manipulative cynical mother fuckers in the country. Wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of them were functionally atheist.
So, the Asians aren't getting better, the Blacks and Whites are getting worse?
That would be a problem. Perhaps the silver lining is that the Asians will not be able to resist the popular culture for long, either. Within a generation or so, they should fall back toward the rest of the pack. Hooray.
"That Asians appear to be pulling away at the high end from everybody else appears to be a massive issue facing 21st Century America, but nobody is much interested in it."
Is it a massive issue? And is it good, bad, or indifferent?
I am much interested, but I don't know what to make of it. Is it the same thing the Jews did a hundred years ago? Will it have very different consequences? Is it happening because Oriental Americans enslaved all those black people on plantations a few centuries ago? I'd like to not worry about it, and just let people be themselves, but I understand that is an unpopular attitude nowadays.
Mostly imported illegals during the massive surge during Obamas years and all those center American families coming with their kids to avoid detention.
America is less white than in 2003 and much more Hispanic. So the scores go down no matter how well the Asians do. I do wonder whether the difference between East Asians and Central Asians is significant. I usually think of Chinese and Koreans being smarter than Indians but that might be racist for me to write. Are the Arabs and Iranians considered "Asian?"
Backing up a bit, whole language vs phonics. One of Phyllis Schlafly's career long causes was taking up for phonics. She never explained it like Steve has that whole language is for literature professors teaching their future literature professor children how to read. However, she did say that even kids that would eventually benefit from whole language methods once they got older were better off starting with phonics.
Steve, do the NAEP scores you cite include English Language Learners, so called ELLs? I found this chart at the NCES website. The scores of ELLs are much lower than those who are not ELLs.
The Big Dig didn’t just improve the drive to the airport - ripping out the abominable elevated Central Artery and replacing it with the greenway might have been worth all the corruption. It was a scar across the city, cutting off the North End. When you walked under it at night you kept your eyes open and kept moving.
I read the comments to this article and every other one said it’s the parents fault. Certainly this is true but it ignores the teachers, educational complex and fads in education.
One thing not mentioned in the article or here is the massive influx of illegal alien children from third world countries who we must educate at taxpayer expense and bring up to speed at a massive cost. ESL, remedial classes, wrap around services, non-engaged parents, etc. wish you’d looked into this Steve. All those DACAs are not intelligent and hard working despite being told this 24-7.
I was part of this project, teaching to the test. As a substitute teacher with an advanced Degree in History I was recruited to help teach tests in US history, government and civics. We went over the information in class and then after pre testing took the underperforming students into a remedial class with fewer students and more graphics than talk. In general, it worked. We improved enough on the tests that we got out of jail. Then it ended and now, 15 years later, the students are back to knowing little or nothing unless they are in AP classes. Our system is broken , perhaps never to recover.
In short, Asians are grinds - and most students are unwilling to work that hard and most parents are not willing to push their kids that hard. My school district had a lot of highly educated South and East Asians. In general, their kids were reasonably smart and very hard working - and their parents tried hard to get their kids to study hard - and it showed. My kids Honors / IB classes were ~75% South and East Asian. Frankly, rather like when I grew up 50 years earlier on the East coast, when the honors classes were majority Jewish.
My daughter's comments was that her peers had Chinese Dragon mothers and Hindu Elephant mothers and she had an American Eagle father.
I let my kids know that they should get used to it, their peers in high school would likely be their peers in the workforce (I am in tech) and they had to work hard enough to compete effectively - which was quite hard. But we didn't do the Ivy status insanity - the kids headed to the University of Washington, my daughter by early admission, my son via Running Start. They both had their Masters before they turned 22 and both work in tech.
Asians do grind, but I don't think they grind harder today than they did in 2003. So it does not explain the divergence in 90th percentile scores over the past 20 years.
The northeast Asians are apparently also relatively bright. But that also seems unlikely to have changed much in 20 years. Whatever the explanation, I hope those American Eagle dads do not become an endangered species.
I think that the popular culture has become even more hedonistic and anti-intellectual than it was earlier. To some degree academic success seems to requires stepping outside / withdrawing more from the popular culture. The highly successful Asian students that I was familiar with among my kids friends were less involved in the popular culture, the kids who were more immersed in the culture did much worse.
I tried to raise my kids more outside of the popular culture, with modest success.
Being anti-intellectual in the traditional sense is bad for academic achievement. There is a second way to be anti-intellectual which is great for it; a completely cynical view of academics as credentials. If society says get an A in calculus to get the good job, grind away until you do. If society changes its mind and says memorizing gangter rap lyrics is required for that job at Goldman Sachs, well, grind away at that.
I was an intellectual in the midst of a bunch of grinds in high school. Several of them were as smart as I, and the rest were at most a notch down. The big difference in life outcomes (as far as I can see/rationalize) is that intelligent, conformist grinds do much better in corporations/hierarchy.
In the STEM fields you have to do a lot of grinding to master the skills and knowledge base that you work upon - I was a Physcist who ended up with a Ph.D. in Engineering - Materials. You cannot avoid the grind. A daughter did Civil Engineering - Structures. Ditto. My son did MIS - Data Security. Ditto.
Of course none of this is necessarily needed if you are playing in the popular culture sphere - pop, rap, ... But that is an area with a plethora of people trying to make a name for themselves, and only a few rising to recognition. You don't have to be a singular superstar in science or engineering to make a good living. In the popular culture essentially all the rewards go to a handful of individuals.
I think it varies. I was a STEM student long before STEM education was invented (even before they called it SMET!), and worked for 45 years in "M". My experience has always been that small amounts of intelligence are more useful than large amounts of grinding. I expect that will continue into the age of AI, at least for a few more years.
I agree. I suppose I was taking advantage and shouldn't denigrate the kids who had to try harder. To me being a grind is working for the A rather than the knowledge.
There is a place for grinds. I can respect grinding.
But I would rather have rebellious intellectuals at the top of the hierarchy. And at least a few more throughout all levels of the organization.
It can't happen with a mature hierarchy because climbing an existing hierarchy is its own talent/skill. I guarantee the current Imams of Iran are the most manipulative cynical mother fuckers in the country. Wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of them were functionally atheist.
:)
So, the Asians aren't getting better, the Blacks and Whites are getting worse?
That would be a problem. Perhaps the silver lining is that the Asians will not be able to resist the popular culture for long, either. Within a generation or so, they should fall back toward the rest of the pack. Hooray.
"That Asians appear to be pulling away at the high end from everybody else appears to be a massive issue facing 21st Century America, but nobody is much interested in it."
Is it a massive issue? And is it good, bad, or indifferent?
I am much interested, but I don't know what to make of it. Is it the same thing the Jews did a hundred years ago? Will it have very different consequences? Is it happening because Oriental Americans enslaved all those black people on plantations a few centuries ago? I'd like to not worry about it, and just let people be themselves, but I understand that is an unpopular attitude nowadays.
It's probably due to our low IQ blacks, hispanics and other third worlders, Steve. Isn't it always?
Mostly imported illegals during the massive surge during Obamas years and all those center American families coming with their kids to avoid detention.
America is less white than in 2003 and much more Hispanic. So the scores go down no matter how well the Asians do. I do wonder whether the difference between East Asians and Central Asians is significant. I usually think of Chinese and Koreans being smarter than Indians but that might be racist for me to write. Are the Arabs and Iranians considered "Asian?"
Backing up a bit, whole language vs phonics. One of Phyllis Schlafly's career long causes was taking up for phonics. She never explained it like Steve has that whole language is for literature professors teaching their future literature professor children how to read. However, she did say that even kids that would eventually benefit from whole language methods once they got older were better off starting with phonics.
She was a Cassandra.
Among other things, Whole Language meant dumpsters behind the school that were full of outdated phonics textbooks.
Oh, dear. Publishers were very upset at the notion of having to supply the correct flavor of full price, hot off the presses replacements.
When the tide turned again a few years later, they were just as annoyed, all over again.
Steve, do the NAEP scores you cite include English Language Learners, so called ELLs? I found this chart at the NCES website. The scores of ELLs are much lower than those who are not ELLs.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_221.70.asp
The Big Dig didn’t just improve the drive to the airport - ripping out the abominable elevated Central Artery and replacing it with the greenway might have been worth all the corruption. It was a scar across the city, cutting off the North End. When you walked under it at night you kept your eyes open and kept moving.
I read the comments to this article and every other one said it’s the parents fault. Certainly this is true but it ignores the teachers, educational complex and fads in education.
One thing not mentioned in the article or here is the massive influx of illegal alien children from third world countries who we must educate at taxpayer expense and bring up to speed at a massive cost. ESL, remedial classes, wrap around services, non-engaged parents, etc. wish you’d looked into this Steve. All those DACAs are not intelligent and hard working despite being told this 24-7.