Shall rule them

The Model Students:

Nicholas Kristof in the Times: Why are Asian-Americans so good at school? ...

Increasingly in America, stellar academic achievement has an Asian face. 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.

Among whites, 2 percent score 750 or better in either the math or verbal SAT. Among Asian-Americans, 3 percent beat 750 in verbal, and 8 percent in math. Frankly, you sometimes feel at an intellectual disadvantage if your great-grandparents weren't peasants in an Asian village. ...

Of course, not all Asian-Americans are so painfully perfect — Filipinos are among the largest groups of Asian-Americans and they do very well without being stellar. Success goes particularly to those whose ancestors came from the Confucian belt from Japan through Korea and China to Vietnam.

It's not just the immigrant mentality, for Japanese-American students are mostly fourth- and fifth-generation now, and they're still excelling. Nor is it just about family background, for Chinese-Americans who trace their origins to peasant villages also graduate summa.

One theory percolating among some geneticists is that in societies that were among the first with occupations that depended on brains, genetic selection may have raised I.Q.'s slightly — a theory suggesting that maybe Asians are just smarter. But I'm skeptical, partly because so much depends on context.

In the U.S., for example, ethnic Koreans are academic stars. But in Japan, ethnic Koreans languish in an underclass, often doing poorly in schools and becoming involved in the yakuza mafia. One lesson may be that if you discriminate against a minority and repeatedly shove its members off the social escalator, then you create pathologies of self-doubt that can become self-sustaining.

Huh? Maybe it's because Kristoff is Caucasian, but does he understand his example doesn't support his skepticism?

If Koreans who do 'poorly' in Japan still outperform non-Asian students in the rest of the world, all his example shows is happy Japanese students are smarter than unhappy Koreans in Japan.

Don't discount the genetic argument so quickly. How else do you explain all the smart Asian American adopted kids? They're raised by Caucasians in a Caucasian society, yet I'll bet they still outperform their non-Asian American siblings.

Kristoff skips over the genetic angle because the implications are uncomfortable and probably unimaginable for a Caucasian raised to believe, implicitly or explicitly, in the superiority of the white male. Ironic, American society is built with an assumption of and toleration for a ruling class; how funny is it if it turns out white males have simply been keeping the seat warm for Asian Americans?

If Asians and Asian Americans are genetically smarter (you gotta admit, for some immigrant kid to outscore native-born kids on the SAT verbal portion is pretty impressive), only outright racism can keep them from running things in our performance-based and information-heavy economy.

Krisotff concludes:

So then why do Asian-Americans really succeed in school? Aside from immigrant optimism, I see two and a half reasons:

First, as Trang suggests, is the filial piety nurtured by Confucianism for 2,500 years. Teenagers rebel all over the world, but somehow Asian-American kids often manage both to exasperate and to finish their homework. And Asian-American families may not always be warm and fuzzy, but they tend to be intact and focused on their children's getting ahead.

Second, Confucianism encourages a reverence for education. In Chinese villages, you still sometimes see a monument to a young man who centuries ago passed the jinshi exam — the Ming dynasty equivalent of getting a perfect SAT. In a Confucian culture, it is intuitive that the way to achieve glory and success is by working hard and getting A's.

Then there's the half-reason: American kids typically say in polls that the students who succeed in school are the "brains." Asian kids typically say that the A students are those who work hard. That means no Asian-American ever has an excuse for not becoming valedictorian. ...

If I'm right, the success of Asian-Americans is mostly about culture, and there's no way to transplant a culture. But there are lessons we can absorb, and maybe the easiest is that respect for education pays dividends. That can come, for example, in the form of higher teacher salaries, or greater public efforts to honor star students. While there are no magic bullets, we would be fools not to try to learn some Asian lessons.

You mean some American lessons, Nicholas. Luckily for the U.S., Asian Americans are an indelible part of this country.

Let's not try to exoticize their success, or make it more mysterious than it is; and let's stay away from articles with the patronizing tone Kristoff gives off. If this country is serious about academic achievement, well then, let's learn from the best, and be humble about it.

Good genes plus hard work equals doing well. Most Americans can forget about the genes (but intermarriage makes it an achievable dream for their kids), so just work hard.

If nothing else, it'll help you related better to your Asian American boss one day.

Photo of Asian American baby found online.