Report: Asian-Americans' academic success hides problems

By JUSTIN POPE, AP Education Writer


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080609/ap_on_...VqyvrzwBHGs0NUE

With their high visibility on elite college campuses, Asian-Americans have picked up a nickname that makes many uncomfortable: the "model minority."

But a new report argues that Asian-Americans' reputation for academic success has obscured important variations within the group — and created a false sense that all their education needs are being met.

As a group, Asian-Americans have earned above-average incomes and achieved high average levels of education, said Rep. David Wu, D.-Ore., at a news conference Monday to release the report by a national commission, two New York University research institutes and the College Board, which owns the SAT exam. But they are clustered both at both the high and low ends of the scale.

"The conversation in our society has had this high-income, high-education group completely overshadow this other group of folks," Wu said. "It has been an education process to convince folks that we are not an ethnic group, every one of which has just graduated from Harvard."

Relative to other ethnic minorities, Asian-Americans have, indeed, been extremely successful by many academic measures. They substantially outscore other minority groups on average scores on the SAT college entrance exam. And according to the report more than 44 percent included in the group Asian-American (but excluding Pacific Islanders) have earned a bachelor's degree, 20 percentage points higher than the national average.

In the prestigious University of California system, the number of Asian-Americans enrolling each fall has shot up 59 percent in the decade since a ballot initiative ended racial preferences in admissions.

But the study notes often overlooked disparities in achievement among the 48 Asian and Pacific Islander groups that fall into the category under the census.

Just 7.5 percent of Hmong immigrants, 9.2 percent of Cambodians and 7.7 percent of Laotians had earned a bachelor's degree in 2000, compared to 43.8 percent of Filipinos and an identical proportion of Koreans.

On standardized tests, Asians are often disproportionately represented among the highest scores, but also among the lowest — doomed by poor English skills. And while their numbers have surged at many high-profile schools, enrollment among Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders is actually increasing nearly twice as fast at community colleges as at four-year ones.

Jih-Fei Cheng, coordinator of the Asian and Pacific Islander Student Center at California State Polytechnic, Pomona, said the "model minority" idea is a burden for many Asian-American students, who comprise about one-third of the student body there.

"What's insidious about that idea now is that a lot of the youth that are raised now in the U.S. of Asian descent, whether they're from families that have been here five or six generations, or just one or two, they are pressured by this 'model minority' myth by their families and society," he said.

But the report also argues the "model minority" argument can mislead policy-makers.

Robert Teranishi of NYU, one of the study's authors, said Asian-American students face challenges including "being invisible, people assuming they don't have any educational needs, they don't need services, they don't need to be included when it comes to particular policies."

Also, he added, "there's some emerging trends that we've found relating to use of mental health services, suicide rates" indicating Asian-American students may be at particular risk — though he cautioned the data there are limited.

The report dances somewhat gingerly around the topic of affirmative action, cautioning against using the academic success of Asian-Americans to demonstrate racial preferences aren't necessary — that the system is adequate for groups that work hard. It calls that argument an excuse to ignore deep problems in the education system.

"In reality, there are no winners" in a college system where the number of black and Latino students has plummeted with the end of affirmative action, the report argues.

In a phone interview, Teranishi acknowledged the end of the affirmative action significantly boosted the number of Asian-Americans in places like the University of California system. But he says it's not clear that the narrow admissions criteria that replaced the old system have benefited Asian-Americans overall.

"Just as some Asians have probably benefited from the narrow definitions of merit that have been applied in the UC system, I think there are also a lot of Asians that probably are disadvantaged because of that," Teranishi said.

The writer seeks attention.... he is trying to find wrongs anywhere he can find it, I dont see anybody from another race having a view on asians like that.... people are too busy dealing with their own problems....

No, he's just trying to dispel the model minority myth because it could do just as much damage than it can help. As for pacific islanders, they already separated themselves in such categories.

The author sounds like some paranoid ultra-liberal. Affirmative Action or not, most Asian-Americans will always succeed in school. Plus the system is not to blame, but it all depends on the individual students' efforts, since there are some that actually don't benefit. Why? Simple. It's because they chose not to strive.

The one's that are having problems are usually refugees from wars. They didn't have english taught to them in first grade. It might take a few generations before they can fully become americanized. I also tell this to my rican friend because his people are not climbing the education ladder.

in europe we have come to the conclusion that these migrant families who are under-achieving, if 1st or 3rd generation makes little difference, don't have enough skills or abilities to teach or pass on their own cultural heritage in a sufficient amount.
if a father or mother has a high level education in turk or swahili or whatever it is, the children can be taught in the family on that high level and then can make the transition to german on at least that level, because basic understanding of linguistic and logic concepts is already there and can be used to adopt the language and professional requirements that be in the host country.
many chinese and japanese families seem to care meticulously for the asian speaking and writing skills of their children.
the culture is available in books, so to say.

the idea is that we want migrant families to maintain an intact, high level of culture and education of their origin (and that means this is NOT the rural tribal attitude sometimes close to illiteracy.)
the matter is still in state of discussion and some of the questions are, what kind of turkish, arab, african etc. classes public schools should offer and how to finance that, also what kind of coaching can be offered to the "marginalized" families.
the point is, that there are always some fundamentalist interest groups (or even criminals) from the home countries, who want to grasp control of educational matters.

so you see where I come from, and my question regarding this thread is,
do you think that it can be helpful to the asian families that have been mentioned, that their children attend classes in their respective asian languages and cultures, for filipinos e.g. reading dr. rizal and more modern literature with a cultural regard, and also some good ancient fairy tales and legends?
then discuss and write essays in the original language, of course the program must fit the age. some public funding + official ethnic interest group + maybe charity should help with the financing, because it is about the not-wealthy families, to make them less dependant in later times.

a further reason for this idea is an observation that cultural progress in the urban areas of the home countries is faster than progress in the diaspora. to them the development is not visible enough, they don't have the direct experience, and many are coming from rural areas also. e.g. they often listen to music that is 30 yrs old etc...

what does already happen in that regard, except satellite TV with the notorious shows? they seem not to discuss culture on a meta level. (I don't know any privat network that does this in an honest way. korean arirang seems a public channel and has at least the main traditions on scope, to make foreign listeners interested.)

I would love to hear some opinions by you, about conscious and official cultural education. then I can contribute that in my regular german forums when the discussion happens to occur about the "diversity" topics. I could then say I know about a couple of filipino opinions.

I have to disagree, the Vietnamese refugees are among the most successful in regards to education among the SE Asian refugees who have made many strides academically. Even the Cambodians. If your talking about the older generation in their 60's and 70's then yes, because they are the original refugees whose background back home were mostly farmers. We're talking about their children today who are way better off than their parents. Besides, even though they never had English taught to them from the 1st grade, they still managed to succeed in business, as doctors, lawyers, engineers, realtors and computer experts. Being Americanized and being fluent in English is not always the keys to success and is not the point here, it's about academic success of Asian-American ethnic groups of our generation today.

I have a pdf on asian statistics(u.s. government accountability office), it's a long read. I just skimmed through it
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07925.pdf

It does mention that the SE Asian refugee populations have among the lowest incomes among the Asian-Americans. Theres hardly any doubt when you think of it that the data was taken from the baby booming generation who still hold blue collar jobs, not the younger generation.

There is a Vietnamese minority in Eastern Germany, that was brought to that place by the Soviet Empire, to work there, under some socialist-internationalist agenda.
Their fate seems much different to what I read here about Vietnamese Americans. Progress seems not as good. Some of the kids seem to join a certain anti-european hip-hop culture that emerges in urban areas that suffer from marginalization. This would be like slamming the door after misinterpreting one's own identity. A small number of filipinos seems angry enough too, to join some Arabs or Turks hanging around in the streets. By this they won't solve any problems, but how can we help so the disharmony does not increase any more?