Some Asian Ethnic Groups' Students Do Better Than Others
Chinese Students Score High, Southeast Asian Students Low in Standardized Tests
NAM education workshop from New America Media on Vimeo.
A new report from the think tank Education Trust-West reveals alarming disparities in academic achievement among different Asian ethnic groups in California.
The report, “Overlooked and Underserved,” which is to be published next month, reveals that while Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South Asian and Vietnamese students often scored better than their white classmates, the public school system appeared to be failing Cambodian, Laotian and Pacific Islander students, who fell farther behind the longer they were in school.
Filipino students’ performance, meanwhile, tracked closely to whites.
Ling-Chi Wang, professor emeritus in ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, said Ed Trust’s findings show that the mainstream media image of Asians as the “model minority” image is incorrect.
Wang spoke at a news briefing organized by New America Media. The briefing was part of a half-day training on education data research for over a dozen ethnic reporters from the Chinese, Vietnamese, Latino, African American, and Russian media.
Wang said that since the term “model minority” was invented by the mainstream society in the late 1960s, the needs of certain Asian groups have been overlooked and under-funded.
“It became an excuse for the government not to look closer and not to provide more help,” said Wang.
The report found that on the whole 72 percent of Asian students in eighth grade were testing at grade level in English in 2009, outperforming their white peers by 6 percent.
Chinese students scored highest, with 81 percent achieving grade level proficiency. Only 46 percent of Cambodian and 40 percent of Laotian
