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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Specifically, India was 73rd out of 74 countries in the 2009 PISA.  They did beat Kyrgyztan, so that's something I guess.  Please tell us more about this wondrous educational system they have there where everybody works hard and achieves.[/quote]

You may be right. Education is not accessible to many poor children in India, and many more children only get a rudimentary education that enables them to read and write.  However, if you compare any child being educated in major metropolitan cities of India - the standard is extremely high.

But why talk about all the kids in India? Let's talk about the Indian kids who are here...they are doing exceedingly well. They come from intact families, their parents are successful and engaged with them, their college will be paid for (in most cases) and they will excel in school.

When given the same opportunities in MCPS that is available to all students in MoCo (including children of your race) - Indians (and Asians) are doing better.

Maybe it is their genes and superior brains because as you pointed out India is low down in PISA.

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Asians in the US outscore Asians in every county in the world on international tests.
Whites in the US are very near the top when compared to white kids in europe/canada etc. on international tests.
Hispanics in the US outscore every majority Hispanic country in the world on international tests.

Clearly the educational system here sucks and is grossly inferior to the educational system in the rest of the world.

WRT the performance of Indians and Asians in MoCo (who I agree are doing very well), do you believe that they're a representative sampling of the countries they're from?  We both know the answer to that. [b] I work in IT, so I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the Asian and Indian kids in MoCo are significantly smarter than average; I know their parents are.  [/b] But that wasn't really my point; my point is that the [b]educational system in the US isn't nearly as bad [/b]as most people want to make it out to be.

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[b]So you are suggesting that the significantly higher than normal representation of Asian (including Indians) in HGC is because they are significantly smarter than average[/b]?

OK - I agree.  And  because these kids are significantly smarter it is not unreasonable to think that they need a more challenging curriculum and they are more focused in academics.

In fact here is something you should think about - many people feel that the Asian kids must be hating all the enrichment, Kumon, tutoring that they get, because their own average kids hate to study.  Maybe - since the Asians are significantly smarter than average, they like the mental stimulation that academics offer. Wow! That is a radical concept! Who would think that there are kids who like to be "straight A" kids and like to study.

I will also agree that the education system in the US isn't as nearly as bad. It could be a lot worse. How much worse? Well - we have 2.0 now, and we will see the real impact in a few years.  But if this world power wants to lag behind other countries in education there is nothing Asian-Americans can do, can we? The only thing we can do is work hard and try and be competitive by our own efforts. Someone has to work hard so that our great nation does not become a complete idiotocracy!

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Partly, the other part is that their parents have drilled/trained/pushed them from a very young age.   FWIW, I don't think that merely pushing kids ahead in a curriculum is necessarily the best way to get kids to learn a subject well.  Do I think all Asian kids hate the extra enrichment?  Don't know.  I do know that one of my daughters' friends at the HGC (an Indian girl by the way) tells her all the time how much she hates math. She wouldn't dare tell her parents this.  My daughter loves math.  Guess who gets drilled in math all the time at home and in the summer?  And yet they're in the same class and get very similar grades.  Obviously one anecdote isn't data, but I think a lot of these kids being pushed along at a frantic pace early on aren't going to be any further along later in life and may very well be pushed into a field in which they're not happy.

I do agree with you on one of your points though; I support providing a more challenging curriculum for the children that are ready for it.  All kids should should be challenged to the best of their abilities. I think the magnet and HGC programs should be expanded to make them more geographically accessible for a larger number of children.  Keeping it at the 2-3% level leaves a lot of really bright kids at a level where they're not getting pushed enough.  Conversely, I also think that the level of instruction at the top HS's in MoCo outside of the magnets is very good, and the kids coming out of them are IMO competitive with kids anywhere in the world.  Perhaps I'm just being naive, but having worked with a lot of these kids through internships, I've been extremely impressed.

With respect to the US educational system not being competitive, as I pointed out before, when (very roughly) controlling for demographics the US isn't lagging behind other countries in education; similar groups in the US outperform the same groups in other countries.   If you took South Korea or Japan and replaced 40% of the school age population with poor black and Hispanic kids I don't think there would be many articles extolling the brilliance of their educational systems.[/quote]

You have an anecdotal example of an Indian girl who does not like math. I also have an anecdotal example of a white girl who does not like math in HGC and she gets help for that.  It proves and disproves nothing more than some kids do not like math and they need extra help.

What I find strange is that if you think that the Asian kids have it so bad - why do you care? You can just be happy that your kids do not have to face what Asian kids do. You are not Mother Teresa that you have to pick up the cause of helping Asian kids not be super achievers!

And if by hard work - a child can get into HGC then what is stopping other groups from doing the same? Either they do not have the will to do it or they do not have the smarts to do it. And if a student (and parents) do not have the will, smarts, inclination, interest to be in HGC - why should they be there?

HGC admissions are race-blind (I hope) - so there is no reason for MCPS to be favoring Asian kids over other races. This is a self selected group. MCPS has no reason to fill these HGC spots with Asian kids. If they are there it is because of their own smarts and hard work.

All this hand wringing about Asian achievement is not serving anybody.  No one is preventing any student from any race from applying into this program and Asians are not shown any preference.

So, why not make others work hard to bridge the achievement gap? Maybe, it is because this achievement gap cannot be bridged. There is a strong support system inherent in the Asian family and culture that lends itself to this kind of achievement and hard work. You cannot replicate it in other cultures easily.  Your children will not accept this kind of rigor and expectation of hard work.

And so if you cannot bridge the achievement gap, should you just lower the bar so that everyone and their donkey can be called "successful"?  How is this helping anybody?

If Asians feel that MCPS and the curriculum is inadequate for their child and they supplement on their own time, effort and money - how is that unfair or interfering with anyone else's life goals?

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