 Do Asian parents focus on academics too much? Or does everybody else just need to step their game up? Welcome everybody to the Hot Pop Boys. David and Andrew here. David, what do you got for the people today? The college board just released a study showing that 6% of the US population, which is Asian Americans, make up over 40% of the elite SAT test scores at 1400 and up. They do love taking tests. So Asians are overrepresented in the high test scores, especially for the SAT. But what about other groups being overrepresented in other industries? Well, for example, in sports, Andrew, white people make up 90% of the hockey and NASCAR people. And there are 60% of the population that's overrepresented. Black people make up 13.5% of the population. They make up over 70% of the NBA and NFL. That's 5x. Hispanics are overrepresented in baseball. It jumps from 18% to over 30%. And Indians, we're taking Indians out of Asians for right now. South Asians are 1% of the population, but they make up 30% of national spelling bee contestants. That's 30x. Yo, man, Indian spell well. Yeah. So I think, obviously, what issue does this bring up? Why is this concerning? First of all, if you guys are interested by this topic, please hit that like button right now and check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys. Moving back to the question, David, why is this concerning for some people, or what is the controversy behind these, I guess, overrepresentations in industries? Right. Yeah. It has to do with this term racial asymmetry, which basically means that certain industries do not reflect the actual racial distribution of America. Obviously, that makes sense because everybody's in a different situation. Different groups have different cultures. They have different immigration waves, and this and that pattern. But I think that when it comes to public education, especially like the SATs, I leave private high schools, I leave public colleges. I mean, I leave public high schools. I'm sorry. People just think like, are the public systems doing enough to address inequality? And Asians are starting to get lumped in with white people due to outcomes, even though, of course, even within Asians, there's a lot of diversity, low-key East Asian, the Southeast Asian, the immigration wave refugee versus non-refugee. But I mean, basically, it's like a huge issue that's exploding right now, whether you're talking about Lowell High School, Stiverson High School, these are elite public high schools, and even in Boston, all around America. Yeah. And I think it raises a lot of questions. Obviously, a lot of people are arguing like, oh, is it really more depend on the cultural values of the family, on whether they value education, or does it depend on the opportunities that that family has to focus on education? Right, maybe parents aren't working like four jobs. Because I'll be honest, if you poll most parents, most parents always say that they do value education. Now, obviously, there's certain families who are putting more time into the academics of that kid, for sure. So first of all, let's just address like the situations of the parents. I definitely think that, you know, whether it's like one parent, two parent, this comes into play, what types of jobs that the parents have. Their education level. Their education level. Let's say, for example, a lot of Asians, not all, but some Asians were able to immigrate to America on elite academic visas. Right. You know what I mean? That was a situation. Obviously, their kids are going to be good at school because their parents came to America good at school. That actually self-selected population is also the true with Nigerians. Nigerians, all the elite Nigerians were able to come to America. That kind of led to a lot of certain outcomes from the kids that are also very academic. But that's not to say that all Asian kids who are doing well in school do come from families that are educated. A lot of them are just like, you know, small shop owners, whatever. Yeah. Could cut tassio for a living. Or just are selling vegetables to be honest. Maybe noodles or whatever like that. We've seen it all the time, right? Yeah. And I think- It's kind of like, more people would give credit to almost the community values and cultural values or the cultural, at least community opportunities too. Where there's more specialized like test prep schools within the Asian community obviously. You could say once because Asians don't really see themselves represented in media or entertainment. So, of course, Asians are kind of smaller physically. We're not going to go into pro sports. You don't really see any Asian like rich entertainers like Jay-Z or whoever like that. So, it's like Asians are going to chase that. So, of course, but it also comes back to the ancient culture. Confucianism, the Gaokao, national exams. Like Asians have had a culture of a national exam determining your future, your first 18 years determining the next 80 years of your life. That has been a cultural value for like an incredibly long time, like thousands of years. So, a lot of people are trying to figure this out. They're trying to give more students opportunities, you know, students from underserved communities. They want specifically like Black and Brown. Yeah, they want to give more Black and Brown kids more opportunities to be in these elite high schools. A lot of people find a lot of problem with this. It's controversial because you're taking away spots from other kids who try really hard their whole life. And then now there's like this lottery system. And it's crazy in the media too, the way it like ends up looking like Asian versus Black on this issue, which is like, I think there's a way more complicated on the back end. But like, if you just pop up the photos, I mean. Yeah, that's how it appears in photos. And visually it definitely feels like that. I mean, does it boil down to just like, where does the LeVar ball attitude end up? Like, you know how LeVar ball raises kids to hoop? But then you could be the LeVar ball on your kids for books. I try to make a rhyme for books. Yeah, yeah, books and hoops. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, that's what people are arguing, right? That's the argument saying like, hey, just keep it a meritocracy on my side. But then there's the other side that's like, hey, we're not given the same opportunities our community doesn't have these other resources. So obviously, to buoy up our kids. And not only that, of course, on a micro level, there's the execution factors. There's a lot of dads who try to be LeVar ball for the NBA and it didn't work out. So, you know, just like a lot of people, I didn't go to Harvard. My parents wanted me to do that. I wasn't able to do it. Yeah, I mean, even if you give dad some version of LeVar ball status, he didn't achieve it. The kids didn't go to the NBA. Essentially, so. Yeah, some people, Tracy did. Shout it to our sister. Oh, Tracy, sort of. Yeah, that's right. But so what are some solutions that people have? There's a lot of different creative solutions. I want people in the comments down below to also share some of their creative solutions too. And the reason why we sped through the weeds so quickly, Andrew, right now, I mean, we like try to shout out everything in the really quickly because you could get stuck in the weeds forever. Like nature versus nurture and culture versus cultivation and all this blah, blah, blah, blah, community stuff. Judging people's cultural values, yes. I mean, you can't, it's could go on and on. We don't need to get into it. Right. What's linked to this and what's linked to that? To which dominoes? What are some of the clever solutions that people are having? Now, no solution is maybe 100 percent perfect. I think there's three situations. One side just completely gives up, right? There's hybrid solutions from the government. And then there's one, like, just solutions that nobody's ever predicted before. So let's just go through it real quick, Andrew. One side giving up, what does that look like? Just the Asian families having to take the fact that some spots that might go to their kids are just going to go to a lottery system of kids who maybe did not prepare themselves as much or don't live in families of ideal situations. I think that this is also moving to the suburbs. This is actually what a lot of white kids did when the white kids didn't want to compete with the Asian kids in the test scores. They either went to private schools or they just moved to rich suburbs. So actually, white people are really not in this discussion anymore because they don't care. And then I would say, I guess, on the other side for certain advocates of the lottery system, them giving up just means like, oh, yeah, everything's just based off raw test score. A hybrid approach based off the government would be like something what they did in Boston where, Andrew, they split up Boston into eight different sections based off income range and geography and racial demographics. And they took the top 10% of test takers from eight different sections of Boston. So basically, they still wanted kids who tried hard at school, but they controlled for family situation and income. Right. I thought that that makes sense. And then for third, I got some crazy off-the-wall solutions that are a little bit more simple because what they did in Boston, Andrew, it's hard to do. Like, they could do it. There's no data yet. It sounds good. Okay. What if Asian parents said, okay, I'll give you 10%? 10% what? Discount? No, yeah, 10% off, okay. No, it wouldn't essentially be 10% off where it's like, basically, you can't really complain that much if a kid is within your kid by 10% on a test score, whether that's SAT or whether that's... Oh, a 10% standard deviation, where it's kind of like, if there's a kid 1,300 to 1,400. Yeah, a kid from a worse family or underserved community, black and brown kid, they score like an 80 and your kid scores a 90. Well, that would be 80, yeah. They're within range. Within range of also being able to compete for your kid's spot. Yeah. And I get why Asian parents would not... I get 10% bump. And I get why 10% bump. And I believe me. I get why Asian parents right now, specifically Chinese parents, you know, come from the Gaoka world, you know, the national exams, Confucianism, we invented the national exam. I get why they're against, like, any of it, but there does have to be some sort of, like, tweaking and rebalancing to address inequity on the public school side. Yeah. I can see why people say, okay, public institutions, me, I do get both sides. I think there's value in my arguments on both sides. Asians just got here and now they're just doing too good or whatever. I don't know. I get it. I think that we got to give kids better schooling when they're young. So in Sweden right now, they are giving, especially lower income families, free preschool for their kids to go to. And the lower income families get the first priority to use the free preschool. And I think that's things like that in America would really help where you put these kids into school, take them maybe outside of their unideal family environment or community environment, whatever it is. You put them in school early on. It builds good habits so that you don't try to have to to hurt kids at, like, high school, man. I think high school is a little late. I'm not saying it can't be done or there's, like, all hope is lost. It seems very performative to basically make up for other things that you're not in control of. Yeah. I'm just like, yo, better elementary and better middle schools and better preschool programs. I think that would really help. I think that's building the good habits. What do you think about what the New York City school chancellor said who said Asian parents need to understand if their kids don't get into a top five elite public high school, their life's not over? Well, that's basically the question that I said in the beginning, which is do Asians focus too much on academics? And this chancellor was like, hey, man, it's not over for your kid if they don't go into the top five. I would have been semi okay with his statement if he would have augmented it by saying, like, here's a program for immigrant parents to understand the other ways their kids can be successful, whether that's trading stocks, crypto, networking, sales, PR, all these other things that are not, like, hardcore STEM subjects, because it's true, like, obviously, we coming from Asia, a lot of the parents don't really believe in, like, having a good career as, like, a rich marketer. No, like, that's, like, not something that even really exists that much in Asia, maybe more recently. But, like, basically what I'm saying is, I didn't like how the school chancellor was basically telling Asian parents to chill out, but he wasn't offering them, like, a compromise or, like, a trade. No, I think that there needs to be more of a trade. You're right, that basically, if you're going to implement some system that will inevitably take spots away from Asian kids who also deserve it, then you have to provide some other alternative program or some alternative class or something. You know what I mean? Like, a lot of these parents, some of the parents are educated that are raising these Asian kids, and some of them are not. Some of them are just, you know, serving Chinese blue-collar workers, you know, selling vegetables or whatever, right? Washington is even possibly collecting cans, you know? They're not privileged. They're not educated, necessarily. Like, there's a pretty big, Chinese Americans actually specifically have the largest income diversity in America and actually the largest income diversity in the world. Yeah, there's a lot of Asians still in poverty. So I think, anyways, there's no perfect solution, right now, that's 100% going to help everybody as much as they want. But I do think that there needs to be a little bit more creative solutions. And I do think raising the floor, obviously, like underserved communities, black and brown communities, like helping them get up and giving them better schooling early on is extremely important. No, it's important for the rest of the society, to be honest. You know, it has very long-term implications, right? So you need to help people out more. But anyways, you let us know in the comments down below what you think. All right, everybody, thanks so much for watching. Until next time, we out. Peace.