Success Sequence

 

Wendy Wang

The obvious success of Asian immigrants to this country is hard to square with a systemic racism narrative. If there is systemic racism in America, why do the children of Asian immigrants do so well that American universities have to take measures to prevent too many Asian students from being admitted?  Below is a post written a few years ago that tried to answer the question. **************************

It’s college admissions time in the USA again, and letters of acceptance and rejection are being mailed out. Inevitably, elite colleges and universities will find themselves overwhelmed with extremely qualified applicants with Asian backgrounds. It has long been suspected that admissions offices impose quotas to keep the number of Asian students down. On the other hand, affirmative action administrators  will bend over backwards to find qualified black applicants. 

Why do Asian students do so well in school while black students do so badly? It is easy to blame prejudice and racism but my own experience has led me to believe that the reason is cultural. A Wall Street Journal op-ed by Wendy Wang, the Director of Research at the Institute for Family Studies, bore out my suspicions. 

Ms. Wang argued that there is a “sequence” that must be followed to achieve success in rising out of poverty. The sequence begins with education, at least a high school diploma, followed by a job, and only then marriage and children. There will be exceptions but her research shows that failure to follow this sequence results in a high probability of a life of poverty or worse. In other words, if children come before marriage, work, and education the results are disastrous.

Wang cited statistics concerning so-called millennials from a study that tracked young adults from their teenage years to early adulthood. Of those who failed to follow the “sequence”, 53% were in poverty. The rate dropped to 31% for those who had at least a high school diploma, and 16% for those with a full-time job. Finally, the poverty rate dropped to 3% for those who held off having children until married.

Interestingly, the success sequence worked extremely well for young adults from low income backgrounds. “Eighty percent of those with lower income backgrounds made it into middle or upper income brackets when they followed all three steps.” Missing one of the steps or putting them out of sequence, like having children before marriage, led to a very high probability of failure.

Ms. Wang cited her own Asian background. In the small Chinese city in which she grew up there were practically no childbirths before marriage. It was unthinkable. Today in China, Japan, and South Korea the out of wedlock birthrate is only 4%. Compare that rate to America’s urban centers where the out of wedlock births often exceed children born to married couples.

I know a young woman with a degree in elementary education from a fine college who started her teaching career as a first grade teacher in a Bridgeport school made up largely of black and hispanic children. Her college degree could not have prepared her for the chaos she encountered on her first day. Every day presented new pathological personal and social behaviors, and these were only first graders. In many ways, first grade is pivotal for it is then that the mind is ready to learn how to read. If the opportunity is missed, students will inevitably fall behind and never catch up.

Sadly and significantly, the teacher told me that on Parent’s Night, only four parents showed up to hear about their child’s progress. Maybe parent is the wrong word because most of these Bridgeport first graders didn’t have parents. They were being raised by grandparents some of whom were not even in their forties. Sometimes even great-grandparents were the caregivers for these children. Moreover, in most cases there were no men involved in the raising of these children. 

No amount of money will rectify the tremendous social disaster that has taken place in American cities in the past few generations. Unwed teenage pregnancies create an almost impossible educational problem. To get an education certificate today, teachers have to take courses that would almost qualify them as master psychologists. 

Even the best teachers will not be able to overcome this cultural disaster.  There is a high probability that the parentless first grader will come to regard school as a prison and even before he or she gets to eight grade they will likely be attacking classmates and teachers, and destroying school property. Next, the probability is also very high that they will join a street gang, become a drug addict or dealer, and eventually wind up in jail or dead on the street.

Some will argue that Ms. Wang’s “sequence” success formula of education, work, marriage, and children is old fashioned. Actually, the success formula she finds in Asia was once the norm in the USA, especially among that generation that we now fondly recall as the “greatest generation.” Some may also argue that just getting an education and a job is sufficient for success, and that marriage and children are no longer necessary. However, another recent news article indicated that there is an epidemic of loneliness and depression sweeping over the country today that seems to indicate that love and marriage are still part of the success sequence.

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Educational Bigotry

The Connecticut Mirror, an online newspaper recently published an article exposing the bias of a school administrator’s hiring practices in wealthy Greenwich. Caught on a hidden camera, the assistant principal admitted to an interviewer that he would never hire a conservative, a Catholic, or anyone over the age of 40. He claimed, with a kind of smug satisfaction, that such people were stuck in their ways and could never be changed into the kind of teacher he wanted for his school in wealthy Greenwich. 

What kind of teachers did he want? He preferred young left-leaning candidates who could be molded into what he wanted. In the elementary school classrooms they would not have to express a political or ideological bias, but just treat left wing positions as the norm, not even subject to debate or discussion. The goal would be to create young Democrats. 

He had developed a series of questions that he used in a 30-minute interview to weed out the undesirables. Of course, he could not ask them directly about their religion, or politics but there were ways to guess. If he suspected they were Conservative or Catholic, they would not be considered for the job. He would not even grant interviews with experienced applicants over the age of 40 because they also tended to be stuck in their ways.

The article in the Connecticut Mirror included the 12-minute video in which not once did the administrator indicate an awareness that he was violating a variety of State laws against such discrimination, laws largely drafted by liberals in blue state Connecticut. Neither did he indicate any awareness that he himself was rigid, bigoted, and stuck in his ways. 

The exposure of the Greenwich school administrator was the work of an organization called Project Veritas that tries to expose those in public office who engage in such misbehavior. The CT Mirror tried to criticize the organization but there was the video which could not be denied. The cat was out of the bag. The administrator was subsequently suspended pending the inevitable investigations, and even Democratic politicians had to complain about such unfair and bigoted hiring practices.

Nevertheless, I believe that the assistant principal in Greenwich was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I suspect that there are thousands like him all over the country whose goal is not education but indoctrination. It is no secret that more than 90% of college professors are left-leaning Democrats. Faculties at colleges of education, that turn out the teachers, must be even more liberal. 

I wonder if the assistant principal actually knows any Catholics or conservatives? Is he unaware of the many outstanding Catholic teachers that have served in Greenwich and other Connecticut public schools for as long as I can remember? Many of them were clients of mine when I worked as a financial advisor. Just like their non-Catholic colleagues, there was the good, the bad, and the ordinary among them. 

I recall one Catholic client who was stuck in her ways. She taught in an elementary school in nearby Bridgeport, where her students were mainly minority children. She was generally regarded as the best teacher of reading in the school. For years, she taught under-privileged and disadvantaged children how to read.  Reading is the foundation of all learning. When I asked her how she did it, she said she used phonics despite the official method recommend by school administrators. When an administrator planned to visit the classroom, she had the children hide the phonics materials in their desks. When the visitor left, they could get back to the work of learning how to read. It was not a matter of faith with her. Phonics just worked. Her children learned how to read. She was interested in education, not indoctrination. If anything, she was a great teacher because she was Catholic. 

A few years ago when an inner-city Catholic parochial school teacher was asked why she taught in a school where most of the students were not Catholic, she replied, “We teach them not because they are Catholic, but because we are Catholic.”

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Educational Failure: Racism or Misogyny

Progressives bemoan the fact that black students perform way below average on educational tests, and offer these results as evidence of “systemic racism” in American society. Nevertheless, could low educational failure be the result of black culture rather than racism? If you search online for "rap music misogyny," you will find that misogyny, an extreme form of sexism, is a major element in the music that reflects the cultural ideal of many young black men.

The article in Wikipedia states that "Misogny in rap music refers to lyrics, videos or other aspects of rap music that support, glorify, justify, or normalize the objectification, exploitation, or victimization of women." According to the article women are routinely referred to as "bitches" and "hos" who can be used and discarded. Is it racism or culture that makes many black men ignore or even abandon their children? Black commentators routinely deplore the fact that so many black children are born out of wedlock, and grow up without fathers.   

Biologists tell us that  there is only one race: the human race. Historians tell us that the good, the bad and the ugly can be found in all of us. No matter what the color of our skin we all have brains that are more powerful than the most advanced computers. Why do some fail and others succeed in education and in life. Why, for example, do children of Asian immigrants do so well in school while black students fall behind from day one. A young Asian scholar has described a "success sequence" of education, a job, marriage, and children that if not followed usually leads to failure in life. 

Wendy Wang

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal two years ago, Wendy Wang, the Director of Research at the Institute for Family Studies, argued that there is a “sequence” that must be followed to achieve success in rising out of poverty. The sequence begins with education, at least a high school diploma, followed by a job, and only then marriage and children. There will be exceptions but her research shows that failure to follow this sequence results in a high probability of a life of poverty or worse. In other words, if children come before marriage, work, and education the results are disastrous.

Wang cited statistics concerning so-called millennials from a study that tracked young adults from their teenage years to early adulthood. Of those who failed to follow the “sequence”, 53% were in poverty. The rate dropped to 31% for those who had at least a high school diploma, and 16% for those with a full-time job. Finally, the poverty rate dropped to 3% for those who held off having children until married.

Interestingly, the success sequence worked extremely well for young adults from low income backgrounds. “Eighty percent of those with lower income backgrounds made it into middle or upper income brackets when they followed all three steps.” Missing one of the steps or putting them out of sequence, like having children before marriage, led to a very high probability of failure.

Ms. Wang cited her own Asian background. In the small Chinese city in which she grew up there were practically no childbirths before marriage. It was unthinkable. Today in China, Japan, and South Korea the out of wedlock birthrate is only 4%. Compare that rate to America’s urban centers where the out of wedlock births often exceed children born to married couples.

I know a young white woman with a degree in elementary education from a fine college who started her teaching career as a first grade teacher in a Bridgeport school made up largely of black and hispanic children. Her college degree could not have prepared her for the chaos she encountered on her first day. Every day presented new pathological personal and social behaviors, and these were only first graders. In many ways, first grade is pivotal for it is then that the mind is ready to learn how to read. If the opportunity is missed, students will inevitably fall behind and never catch up.

Sadly and significantly, the teacher told me that on Parent’s Night, only four parents showed up to hear about their child’s progress. Maybe parent is the wrong word because most of these Bridgeport first graders didn’t have parents. They were being raised by grandparents some of whom were not even in their forties. Sometimes even great-grandparents were the caregivers for these children. Moreover, in most cases there were no men involved in the raising of these children. 

No amount of money will rectify the tremendous social disaster that has taken place in American cities in the past few generations. Unwed teenage pregnancies create an almost impossible educational problem. To get an education certificate today, teachers have to take courses that would almost qualify them as master psychologists. 

Even the best teachers will not be able to overcome this cultural disaster. There is a high probability that the parentless first grader will come to regard school as a prison and even before he or she gets to eight grade they will likely be attacking classmates and teachers, and destroying school property. Next, the probability is also very high that they will join a street gang, become a drug addict or dealer, and eventually wind up in jail or dead on the street.

Some will argue that Ms. Wang’s “sequence” success formula of education, work, marriage, and children is old fashioned. Actually, the success formula she finds in Asia was once the norm in the USA, especially among that generation that we now fondly recall as the “greatest generation.” Some may also argue that just getting an education and a job is sufficient for success, and that marriage and children are no longer necessary. However, another news article indicated that there is an epidemic of loneliness and depression sweeping over the country today that seems to indicate that love and marriage are still part of the success sequence.

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