Asian kindergarten students more likely to display advanced math, science skills, new study finds

[Anonymous]

Many immigrant cultures emphasize school and studying because we escaped our homes for better opportunities. It is true that some immigrants are highly educated in their home countries. I am not Asian but was a white immigrant going to one of the magnet NYC schools back in the day. Yes, most of the AP classes were a mix of Asian and immigrant white kids. Poor, most of us were poor, b/c we were recent immigrants. But school was a priority. Just like it is for my kids now. As others have said, the vast majority of schools don't care about bright students who are not causing problems in class, so as a parent, I supplement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many immigrant cultures emphasize school and studying because we escaped our homes for better opportunities. It is true that some immigrants are highly educated in their home countries. I am not Asian but was a white immigrant going to one of the magnet NYC schools back in the day. Yes, most of the AP classes were a mix of Asian and immigrant white kids. Poor, most of us were poor, b/c we were recent immigrants. But school was a priority. Just like it is for my kids now. As others have said, the vast majority of schools don't care about bright students who are not causing problems in class, so as a parent, I supplement.

+1 I didn't really supplement, but school was always a priority for me, and my parents were uneducated Asian immigrants.

But IMO it is very cultural. Not all immigrant cultures put a high priority on education. Of course, YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many immigrant cultures emphasize school and studying because we escaped our homes for better opportunities. It is true that some immigrants are highly educated in their home countries. I am not Asian but was a white immigrant going to one of the magnet NYC schools back in the day. Yes, most of the AP classes were a mix of Asian and immigrant white kids. Poor, most of us were poor, b/c we were recent immigrants. But school was a priority. Just like it is for my kids now. As others have said, the vast majority of schools don't care about bright students who are not causing problems in class, so as a parent, I supplement.

There is nothing wrong with seeking outstanding education as a means to elevate one's children out of circumstances of poverty and lesser resources.

Where it becomes problematic is when the obsession turns not to educational quality, but educational PRESTIGE, and especially for those families who already have significant means.

I wouldn't have an issue with the obsession with TJ and the Ivies in our community if it were borne of the idea that those are genuinely the best schools that provide the best education. But they're not, and everyone knows they're not. They're just ranked highly because they're extremely selective.

We (or our parents) had situations that we needed to escape with educational prestige. The kids who are in school now, who are the progeny of those folks who did escape, don't have those same issues. They will largely do exceptionally well wherever they go.

And this is why people use the phrase "opportunity hoarding" to describe us. And they're right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would anyone undertake such a study?

More evidence that the achievement gap starts in the home, not the school system.

This is probably the bigger issue if Asian's (and some others like us) supplement at home and put our kids in more academically geared preschools. Maybe we should start looking at the play based preschools that are not preparing kids for K.

Oh you guys! Always cutting your nose to spite your face, no? Make everything and everyone dumber. It will not prevent Asian-American parents from teaching their kids at home. Asian-Americans are educated parents. They will at least pass on their own skills and knowledge to their children.

Achievement gap is a symptom of a huge problem. The problem is that the home life of an underperforming student is typically not conducive to academic achievement. Achievement gap has nothing to with Asian-Americans. That is not the problem of Asian-Americans. It is a problem that Asians did not create, did not contribute, and can not solve. I don't understand why Asian-Americans are targeted because others are failing? Can you explain to me the logic of that?

Asians are often highly represented in magnet schools and academic competitions. There are people who want representation, and Asians make it harder to achieve it. Hence the hostility. It's in-group/out-group behavior.

Some of it's also cultural. For whatever reason, there's a disdain for nerds and strivers in this country, and many Asians fit that description. Sports is okay. Not academics.

But you're right. It's not really a problem Asians created.

This is a big factor. (Also the general anti-intellectualism in this country.) For example, my child has been taking classes for the past few years at AOPS. At pick-up time, the students who stream out of the building are 95% of East Asian and South Asian heritage. It’s a priority extracurricular for those families.

I challenge you to take a kid who does not have the brain power and interest in Math to sit and do AOPS. My Asian-American STEM magnet kid has been a straight A student who scored a 1600 in SAT. 5 in AP Calc BC in 10th grade etc. He was never able to sit and do Kumon or AOPS etc because it was not his cup of tea. He is capable in Math but he does not like Math more than anything else. For the 95% of Asians doing AOPS, it is something to do with the fact that it is a self-selecting crowd. A whole lot more Asian-Americans do not do AOPS. However, the fact that they are swimmers, tennis player, musicians, golfers, painters, debaters, martial artists ...all of these things are deliberately disregarded.

The problem for most people is mainly that Asian-Americans take each challenge and overcome it. A decade ago, Asian-Americans were good in Math but lagging behind in English. Now they excel in ELA and FL as well.

By having a civil war against Asian-Americans in academics, USA is harming itself. It is not as if other countries will also start NOT educating their children in solidarity with underperformers in USA.

DP who also had the only white kid in AOPS. Agree, it is a stereotype that all Asians grind at Math. But at the same time it is true that most math enrichment programs are heavily Asian around here! That said the point of AOPS is not that the kids there love math and eat it up like candy. It’s simply to give your kid extra math so they are better at it. And that absolutely works, whatever the level or interest of the kid.

WTH is AOPS?

-Asian American whose kid scored 800 on math and 5 on AP Calc and AP lit

Art of Problem Solving

-Another Asian American whose kid scored 800 on math, reading and writing and 5 on all AP exams taken.

^PP here.. I have never heard of this program. What is it? Is it like Kumon? I have heard of that one.

My version of supplementing was buy a singapore math book from amazon and have the kid do it for like 15 min every few days.

Some kids are academically oriented; others are not.

My one DC who is academically oriented likes math so didn't need any type of supplementing. My other kid is not an academic, so I had DC work on the signapore workbook a bit, also because this DC was taking Algebra during the pandemic and virtual learning. I was worried this DC was going to have deep gaps in Algebra.

I also would correct my kid's writing when they were in ES because the teachers weren't doing it. My teen DC told me that they think this helped them with their writing.

Agree with a PP, teachers are focused on the low achieving students to try to get them up. Super high achieving students can take rigorous classes/programs in HS. That leaves the wide middle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many immigrant cultures emphasize school and studying because we escaped our homes for better opportunities. It is true that some immigrants are highly educated in their home countries. I am not Asian but was a white immigrant going to one of the magnet NYC schools back in the day. Yes, most of the AP classes were a mix of Asian and immigrant white kids. Poor, most of us were poor, b/c we were recent immigrants. But school was a priority. Just like it is for my kids now. As others have said, the vast majority of schools don't care about bright students who are not causing problems in class, so as a parent, I supplement.

There is nothing wrong with seeking outstanding education as a means to elevate one's children out of circumstances of poverty and lesser resources.

Where it becomes problematic is when the obsession turns not to educational quality, but educational PRESTIGE, and especially for those families who already have significant means.

I wouldn't have an issue with the obsession with TJ and the Ivies in our community if it were borne of the idea that those are genuinely the best schools that provide the best education. But they're not, and everyone knows they're not. They're just ranked highly because they're extremely selective.

We (or our parents) had situations that we needed to escape with educational prestige. The kids who are in school now, who are the progeny of those folks who did escape, don't have those same issues. They will largely do exceptionally well wherever they go.

And this is why people use the phrase "opportunity hoarding" to describe us. And they're right.

The worst offenders of "opportunity hoarding" are legacies at prestigious colleges. Maybe start there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chinese- and Indian-ancestry kids who are in America predominately come from families who could, for cultural, biological, and genetic reasons, study hard and perform well on tests. In many cases these traits were selected for over millennia. America is fortunate to have these smart and hard-working families and kids. Hopefully their smarts and grit doesn’t get beat out of them by the system.

It’s insane that we can’t say these Asian kids perform better in part because they are just biologically smarter than the average non-Asian American kid. Academic achievement is at least 50% genetic in early childhood, and even more so as kids get older.

It may be cultural but it’s not genetic. Academics are largely about inputs and dose-dependent. Any kid send to AOPS for a year will outperform peers and see big personal increases in scores.

It is not genetic.

30 years ago, I worked for the research department of JHU’s CTY.

We identified gifted and talented kids by, in 7th grade, giving them the SAT (yes, they took the full SAT in 7th grade).

Kids scoring above 930 combined were qualified for our accelerated summer courses. Of the talented kids we identified:

1/3 of the kids were Asian; another 1/3rd self-identified as Jewish. The remaining 1/3rd were a mix of every remaining group.

That tells you the deciding factor is: culture.

By the way, of the non Asian, non Jewish kids, very few were Hispanic, and fewer still were AA. Even back then, we had many extra outreach programs to inner city schools, waived test fees, subsidized transportation on test days, etc. to try to compensate and identify academically talented AA and Hispanic kids.

The problem was education was not prioritized the same way across every household, the difference being cultural.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many immigrant cultures emphasize school and studying because we escaped our homes for better opportunities. It is true that some immigrants are highly educated in their home countries. I am not Asian but was a white immigrant going to one of the magnet NYC schools back in the day. Yes, most of the AP classes were a mix of Asian and immigrant white kids. Poor, most of us were poor, b/c we were recent immigrants. But school was a priority. Just like it is for my kids now. As others have said, the vast majority of schools don't care about bright students who are not causing problems in class, so as a parent, I supplement.

There is nothing wrong with seeking outstanding education as a means to elevate one's children out of circumstances of poverty and lesser resources.

Where it becomes problematic is when the obsession turns not to educational quality, but educational PRESTIGE, and especially for those families who already have significant means.

I wouldn't have an issue with the obsession with TJ and the Ivies in our community if it were borne of the idea that those are genuinely the best schools that provide the best education. But they're not, and everyone knows they're not. They're just ranked highly because they're extremely selective.

We (or our parents) had situations that we needed to escape with educational prestige. The kids who are in school now, who are the progeny of those folks who did escape, don't have those same issues. They will largely do exceptionally well wherever they go.

And this is why people use the phrase "opportunity hoarding" to describe us. And they're right.

It seems like there are a lot of internal contradictions in your post ... are you sending your kid to a bad in bound DCPS HS under the assumption that they will "do exceptionally well wherever they go"? Or are you "just" sending them to BCC instead of a private or magnet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chinese- and Indian-ancestry kids who are in America predominately come from families who could, for cultural, biological, and genetic reasons, study hard and perform well on tests. In many cases these traits were selected for over millennia. America is fortunate to have these smart and hard-working families and kids. Hopefully their smarts and grit doesn’t get beat out of them by the system.

It’s insane that we can’t say these Asian kids perform better in part because they are just biologically smarter than the average non-Asian American kid. Academic achievement is at least 50% genetic in early childhood, and even more so as kids get older.

It may be cultural but it’s not genetic. Academics are largely about inputs and dose-dependent. Any kid send to AOPS for a year will outperform peers and see big personal increases in scores.

It is not genetic.

30 years ago, I worked for the research department of JHU’s CTY.

We identified gifted and talented kids by, in 7th grade, giving them the SAT (yes, they took the full SAT in 7th grade).

Kids scoring above 930 combined were qualified for our accelerated summer courses. Of the talented kids we identified:

1/3 of the kids were Asian; another 1/3rd self-identified as Jewish. The remaining 1/3rd were a mix of every remaining group.

That tells you the deciding factor is: culture.

By the way, of the non Asian, non Jewish kids, very few were Hispanic, and fewer still were AA. Even back then, we had many extra outreach programs to inner city schools, waived test fees, subsidized transportation on test days, etc. to try to compensate and identify academically talented AA and Hispanic kids.

The problem was education was not prioritized the same way across every household, the difference being cultural.

Right. And here is where I would argue for the value of affirmative action done in a thoughtful way that does not reduce the pie. Those inner city schools every year had dozens of kids with a lot of potential that would never outscore the more privileged kids. But they need to be uplifted just as much if not more. If I were running JHU I wouldn't change the core program, but I would try to create something for those kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: The answer is universal pre-k, late school closing and year round school. Any gap in the school schedule is an opportunity for parents to widen the socio - economic and racial gap for their own kids by supplementing privately. There shouldn’t be that gap in the system:

+1 In lower performing schools, this is what is needed. You need more time with those kids.

I believe there are two MCPS ES with high FARMS rate where they are experimenting with a lengthened school calendar. Not sure how long this has been happening. Will be interesting to see the outcome.

There is a teacher shortage. The kids in classrooms are very disruptive. Restorative justice is penalizing teachers and students who want to study. If your education system is so broken, what kind of teachers are we producing?

The problem is not that many children are below grade level. The problem is that children who are on grade level and above are not being educated either at school. The first order of the day should be that kids who are bright and capable of being educated should be removed from classrooms with low performers and put in very supported advanced learning classrooms. Next, you need to pour in money and staff to intensively tutor the kids who are behind. You cannot have everyone in the same classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chinese- and Indian-ancestry kids who are in America predominately come from families who could, for cultural, biological, and genetic reasons, study hard and perform well on tests. In many cases these traits were selected for over millennia. America is fortunate to have these smart and hard-working families and kids. Hopefully their smarts and grit doesn’t get beat out of them by the system.

It’s insane that we can’t say these Asian kids perform better in part because they are just biologically smarter than the average non-Asian American kid. Academic achievement is at least 50% genetic in early childhood, and even more so as kids get older.

It may be cultural but it’s not genetic. Academics are largely about inputs and dose-dependent. Any kid send to AOPS for a year will outperform peers and see big personal increases in scores.

It is not genetic.

30 years ago, I worked for the research department of JHU’s CTY.

We identified gifted and talented kids by, in 7th grade, giving them the SAT (yes, they took the full SAT in 7th grade).

Kids scoring above 930 combined were qualified for our accelerated summer courses. Of the talented kids we identified:

1/3 of the kids were Asian; another 1/3rd self-identified as Jewish. The remaining 1/3rd were a mix of every remaining group.

That tells you the deciding factor is: culture.

By the way, of the non Asian, non Jewish kids, very few were Hispanic, and fewer still were AA. Even back then, we had many extra outreach programs to inner city schools, waived test fees, subsidized transportation on test days, etc. to try to compensate and identify academically talented AA and Hispanic kids.

The problem was education was not prioritized the same way across every household, the difference being cultural.

Right. And here is where I would argue for the value of affirmative action done in a thoughtful way that does not reduce the pie. Those inner city schools every year had dozens of kids with a lot of potential that would never outscore the more privileged kids. But they need to be uplifted just as much if not more. If I were running JHU I wouldn't change the core program, but I would try to create something for those kids.

What about low income Asian students? What boost or affirmative action do they get?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: The answer is universal pre-k, late school closing and year round school. Any gap in the school schedule is an opportunity for parents to widen the socio - economic and racial gap for their own kids by supplementing privately. There shouldn’t be that gap in the system:

+1 In lower performing schools, this is what is needed. You need more time with those kids.

I believe there are two MCPS ES with high FARMS rate where they are experimenting with a lengthened school calendar. Not sure how long this has been happening. Will be interesting to see the outcome.

There is a teacher shortage. The kids in classrooms are very disruptive. Restorative justice is penalizing teachers and students who want to study. If your education system is so broken, what kind of teachers are we producing?

The problem is not that many children are below grade level. The problem is that children who are on grade level and above are not being educated either at school. The first order of the day should be that kids who are bright and capable of being educated should be removed from classrooms with low performers and put in very supported advanced learning classrooms. Next, you need to pour in money and staff to intensively tutor the kids who are behind. You cannot have everyone in the same classroom.

Most 'grade-level' students in this country would be considered 'slow-learner' or below-grade by almost all European countries not to mention East Asian countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would anyone undertake such a study?

More evidence that the achievement gap starts in the home, not the school system.

This is probably the bigger issue if Asian's (and some others like us) supplement at home and put our kids in more academically geared preschools. Maybe we should start looking at the play based preschools that are not preparing kids for K.

Oh you guys! Always cutting your nose to spite your face, no? Make everything and everyone dumber. It will not prevent Asian-American parents from teaching their kids at home. Asian-Americans are educated parents. They will at least pass on their own skills and knowledge to their children.

Achievement gap is a symptom of a huge problem. The problem is that the home life of an underperforming student is typically not conducive to academic achievement. Achievement gap has nothing to with Asian-Americans. That is not the problem of Asian-Americans. It is a problem that Asians did not create, did not contribute, and can not solve. I don't understand why Asian-Americans are targeted because others are failing? Can you explain to me the logic of that?

Asians are often highly represented in magnet schools and academic competitions. There are people who want representation, and Asians make it harder to achieve it. Hence the hostility. It's in-group/out-group behavior.

Some of it's also cultural. For whatever reason, there's a disdain for nerds and strivers in this country, and many Asians fit that description. Sports is okay. Not academics.

But you're right. It's not really a problem Asians created.

This is a big factor. (Also the general anti-intellectualism in this country.) For example, my child has been taking classes for the past few years at AOPS. At pick-up time, the students who stream out of the building are 95% of East Asian and South Asian heritage. It’s a priority extracurricular for those families.

I challenge you to take a kid who does not have the brain power and interest in Math to sit and do AOPS. My Asian-American STEM magnet kid has been a straight A student who scored a 1600 in SAT. 5 in AP Calc BC in 10th grade etc. He was never able to sit and do Kumon or AOPS etc because it was not his cup of tea. He is capable in Math but he does not like Math more than anything else. For the 95% of Asians doing AOPS, it is something to do with the fact that it is a self-selecting crowd. A whole lot more Asian-Americans do not do AOPS. However, the fact that they are swimmers, tennis player, musicians, golfers, painters, debaters, martial artists ...all of these things are deliberately disregarded.

The problem for most people is mainly that Asian-Americans take each challenge and overcome it. A decade ago, Asian-Americans were good in Math but lagging behind in English. Now they excel in ELA and FL as well.

By having a civil war against Asian-Americans in academics, USA is harming itself. It is not as if other countries will also start NOT educating their children in solidarity with underperformers in USA.

DP who also had the only white kid in AOPS. Agree, it is a stereotype that all Asians grind at Math. But at the same time it is true that most math enrichment programs are heavily Asian around here! That said the point of AOPS is not that the kids there love math and eat it up like candy. It’s simply to give your kid extra math so they are better at it. And that absolutely works, whatever the level or interest of the kid.

WTH is AOPS?

-Asian American whose kid scored 800 on math and 5 on AP Calc and AP lit

Art of Problem Solving

-Another Asian American whose kid scored 800 on math, reading and writing and 5 on all AP exams taken.

^PP here.. I have never heard of this program. What is it? Is it like Kumon? I have heard of that one.

My version of supplementing was buy a singapore math book from amazon and have the kid do it for like 15 min every few days.

Some kids are academically oriented; others are not.

My one DC who is academically oriented likes math so didn't need any type of supplementing. My other kid is not an academic, so I had DC work on the signapore workbook a bit, also because this DC was taking Algebra during the pandemic and virtual learning. I was worried this DC was going to have deep gaps in Algebra.

I also would correct my kid's writing when they were in ES because the teachers weren't doing it. My teen DC told me that they think this helped them with their writing.

Agree with a PP, teachers are focused on the low achieving students to try to get them up. Super high achieving students can take rigorous classes/programs in HS. That leaves the wide middle.

AOPS is supposedly more in-depth than Kumon. Less about memorizing and worksheets, more about content. I believe they also don't push the kids into advanced curriculum but instead go more slowly & deeply on concepts. The online version is called Beast Academy.

Personally I worry more about writing than math, given that writing is a skill likely more important to my DS's career. AOPs has language arts classes too, but not sure if they are as useful as math.

[Anonymous]

My American born Asian kid is great at math, and I swear that I did not supplement. We are full time working parents, so we had no choice but sent him to daycare when he was little. Once he learnt phonics, he learnt how to read books by himself. Once he learnt basic math, he figured out the logic and learned multiplication and division by himself from youtube and other resources. One he learned the basic chess from daycare, he went to find adults to play chess with him etc.

Well, he is competitive and self-motivated to learn and at the same time he spent hours playing video games daily. He does not need to study to excel and there is no study habit because he does not need one. He is also one of the troubled kid at school because he is bored. So, he has the typical stereotypes of asian kid being smart but he is also troubled (non typical stereotype) at the same time. I don't think teacher likes him though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chinese- and Indian-ancestry kids who are in America predominately come from families who could, for cultural, biological, and genetic reasons, study hard and perform well on tests. In many cases these traits were selected for over millennia. America is fortunate to have these smart and hard-working families and kids. Hopefully their smarts and grit doesn’t get beat out of them by the system.

It’s insane that we can’t say these Asian kids perform better in part because they are just biologically smarter than the average non-Asian American kid. Academic achievement is at least 50% genetic in early childhood, and even more so as kids get older.

It may be cultural but it’s not genetic. Academics are largely about inputs and dose-dependent. Any kid send to AOPS for a year will outperform peers and see big personal increases in scores.

It is not genetic.

30 years ago, I worked for the research department of JHU’s CTY.

We identified gifted and talented kids by, in 7th grade, giving them the SAT (yes, they took the full SAT in 7th grade).

Kids scoring above 930 combined were qualified for our accelerated summer courses. Of the talented kids we identified:

1/3 of the kids were Asian; another 1/3rd self-identified as Jewish. The remaining 1/3rd were a mix of every remaining group.

That tells you the deciding factor is: culture.

By the way, of the non Asian, non Jewish kids, very few were Hispanic, and fewer still were AA. Even back then, we had many extra outreach programs to inner city schools, waived test fees, subsidized transportation on test days, etc. to try to compensate and identify academically talented AA and Hispanic kids.

The problem was education was not prioritized the same way across every household, the difference being cultural.

Right. And here is where I would argue for the value of affirmative action done in a thoughtful way that does not reduce the pie. Those inner city schools every year had dozens of kids with a lot of potential that would never outscore the more privileged kids. But they need to be uplifted just as much if not more. If I were running JHU I wouldn't change the core program, but I would try to create something for those kids.

What about low income Asian students? What boost or affirmative action do they get?

They deserve it too. I'm looking more at the schools than the races. The kind of schools (in DCPS) where 90% of the kids fail PARCC, but then you have those 10 kids who get 5s every year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would anyone undertake such a study?

More evidence that the achievement gap starts in the home, not the school system.

plus genetics

Genetics is a big no no to talk about

Genetics definitely matters for intelligence, no doubt about it. On average, more intelligent parents of a given background, have more intelligent children. But there is absolutely no evidence to support, and plenty of evidence to refute, the idea that race and intelligence are at all correlated. On the other hand, there's a huge amount of evidence that the achievement gap between races is due to social structures.

I highly recommend the book The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/can-genetics-help-eliminate-inequality/2021/11/17/e7767ad6-286c-11ec-9de8-156fed3e81bf_story.html