[quote=AN][quote=flu]Well in on honesty, imho “race” base performance these days is more of a myth than truth imho…
Imho, it has a lot more to do with social-economic environment/background than actual “race/ethnicity” in this modern world.
You take a bunch of upper-middle class educated people and stick them in one school district, doesn’t really matter what ethnicity they are. Chances are they all want the same thing (probably) and probably perform more or less the same…Maybe that’s what’s going on…Bahh, i don’t care… (for the last time)…[/quote]
I would have to disagree with this one. Here’s an example:
Hoover HS API:
Asian – 747
Torrey Pines HS API:
Hispanic – 745
This is comparing low income area vs upper middle class area. How can you explain the fact that Asian in low income areas like El Cajon getting similar API scores as Hispanics in an area like Carmel Valley?[/quote]
AN, Hoover HS is in SD, NOT El Cajon. And only parts of El Cajon 92020 and 92021 are “low income.” The rest of EC residents (incl those who reside in 92019) are MC and upper MC.
I’ve always maintained that certain HS’s in SD County “cater” to Asians, thus they excel when in classes full of Asians like themselves and taught by Asian teachers. I haven’t actually checked but given the ethnicity of most business owners/operators along El Cajon Blvd (Hoover’s attendance area), the Asian students at Hoover are most likely Vietnamese. This demographic typically doesn’t have the resources of Chinese students (extra private tutoring, etc) because, even though their parents are possibly “successful biz owners” now, they or THEIR parents (students’ grandparents) were “resettled” here in SD by the Federal govm’t as refugees 20-30 years ago with only the clothing on their backs and perhaps not all their children with them. They didn’t move here with university educations.
Even moreso than having an “upper MC” family income which is very often solely the (ahem, temporary) result of two parents working FT, public school students do best when they are enrolled in a school full of their demographic “peers” and most of the teachers at their school are of the same demographic as them. For instance, in several SUHSD high schools, “Hispanics” score much higher on state-administered exams than the vast majority of HS’s in other districts in SD County because they are surrounded by mostly themselves, including their teacher and administrator-mentors.
This is why districts prefer to hire a newly-minted young teacher who graduated from a HS in their own district over an outsider.
“Family income” is not the only thing or even the main thing that contributes to a CA school’s high API score, IMHO. I believe they are accomplished by expert teachers explicitly teaching to the test by rote, repetition, using rewards, etc. … whatever it takes to raise the scores of a particular population of students. The most successful teachers in this regard are those who personally and intimately identify with the culture of their students, whether by birth, marriage or assimilation.
In other words, if your children are at least 50% “Hispanic” and your family is able to afford an “upper MC” area, why would you choose to raise them in the TPHS attendance area, when, instead of being “ignored” in school in favor of students of other ethnicities, they would thrive and do so much better at Bonita Vista High School (BVHS) with a 2011 API of 851?
Very “high scoring” public schools are not for every kid. There are many other factors that should be considered in school selection besides “API score.”
