"Why are Asian-Americans so good at school?" (#129; Topic E)

Our son, upon returning to Brooklyn after a Mother's Day visit, sent us a clipping from that day's New York Times (5/14/06). With a provocative first sentence, quoted as the title to this entry, columnist Nicholas Kristof proceeded to cite some impressive statistics: "In 2005, Asian-Americans averaged a combined math-verbal SAT of 1091, compared with 1068 for whites, 982 for American Indians, 922 for Hispanics and 864 for blacks. Forty-four percent of Asian American students take calculus in high school, compared with 28 percent of all students." Indeed, in a 5/16 article to celebrate the Asian-American month (May), the Washington Post stated that 49% of Asian-Americans 25 years of age or older have at least a baccalaureate degree, while the national figure for all Americans is 28%. To answer his own questions, Kristof offered "two and a half reasons." One, "the filial piety nurtured by Confucianism for 2,500 years." I share his view, with one minor exception: his unfortunate choice of words. (For the past two years, I have been reading away, with the hope of doing a book on the influence of western theology upon Chinese culture; "filial piety" was a term invented by missionaries to misrepresent Chinese's respect for their parents -- but I digress.) Two, "Confucianism encourages a reverence for education;" this I totally agree -- indeed, I want to take my hat off to Kristof for his insightful view. The "half- reason" focuses on American students' viewing those who succeed in school as the "brains," while their Asian-American counterparts view success in school as due to "working hard" -- I share the second half of the argument (the "half reason"?). Kristof's concluding paragraph is a gem: In his view, "the success of Asian-Americans is mostly about culture, and there is no way to transplant a culture." Again, my hat is off to him. Arguing that "respect for education pays dividends," Kristof suggests, as one solution, "higher teacher salaries," a point I also made in my presentation to high-school students and their teachers in West Virginia a couple of weeks ago (#126).