[quote=SK in CV][quote=AN]With that said, I think you’re just having a case of grass is greener on the other side. Would CV schools be where it is with the reputation it has w/out the kids from those tiger parents? Mira Mesa schools can use a few more tiger parents. Just look at the API scores of the subgroups. TPHS and MMHS are pretty comparable until you get to the Asian category. TPHS Asian blew by MMHS like it was standing still. Would CV be fetching to premium it does w/out its schools?[/quote]
It isn’t just the schools in CV. It’s just as much the families. A handful of them might be tiger families, but I’m guessing most are not. There’s a culture both within the school and in the kids homes where academic achievement is a good thing. Kids study. Few of them work. (I’m talking about the high schools here.) There aren’t a lot of behavior problems. There isn’t a lot of bullying. The kids in band are just as cool as the football players or the basketball players. There are as many AP classes available as a kid (or parent) could want. My daughter got straight A’s. She could have taken 2 more AP classes. She wasn’t in the top 10% of her graduating class. (They dont publish class rankings, i think in order to avoid competition. I only know that because there’s some special UC entrance benefit for graduating in the top 10% of the class.) That means that at least 10% of the class too more AP classes than she did AND got straight A’s.
I think if you put these same kids in almost any school, they’d perform almost as well. And unless things have changed dramatically in the last 5 years, these are NOT mostly tiger parents.[/quote]
I think you’re basically saying what I said in a different way. CV school is one of the big reason that draw people to CV. Which also is one of the reason CV has its premium. I never said CV schools can teach the kids better than other schools. There’s no way for me to prove one way or another. However, I think API scores has a lot more to do with demographic than school’s teaching ability. The Asian demographic there does really emphasize academic. Their result shows, whether you think it work or not.
Just because the “tiger” parent term was made popular recently doesn’t mean the “tiger” behavior hasn’t always been there among parents who are educated and driven themselves. I think educated upper middle class parents know that they got where they are because of their education. So, many push their kids to excel in education, hoping their kids will do better than they did. So, whether it’s a word like “tiger” or not, the behavior has always been there. BTW, the culture you described is a mild “tiger” parent behavior to me. It’s just the extreme “tiger” parent don’t just think academic achievement is a good thing, it’s an expected thing.
If you graduated in the top 10%, you’re guaranteed a to be accepted to one UC. Mine was UCI (I didn’t go there though). My cousin just graduated this year and she got accepted to both UCLA and UCSD. Her parents didn’t push are at all (her academic accomplishments was all her own). She wasn’t in the top 5 and her GPA was 4.5 (straight As). Are you sure they don’t publish ranking? At least for MMHS, they did and they still do. Not all successful kids have “tiger” parents. My cousin is a prime example. However, I think she can do much more if her parents are “tiger” parents. I think her potential is higher than her result.
