[11thEarlOfMar]

There are a very high percentage of foreign-born parents all over the Bay Area. Last time I checked, for example, more than 30% of the residents of Alameda county were born outside the US.

One factor, in my opinion, is that for a lot of immigrant parents, their success in education enabled them to move to Silicon Valley. Education changed their lives and, many would say, in a hugely positive way.

So they apply that same perspective to their children's education and expect the kids to have the same educational experience they did.

The problem for the kids is that what it takes to succeed in the US is different from what enabled their parents to get into the US in the first place. It's not clear to me what the implications of that are, but boldness, innovation, insight, team spirit, leadership, and a lot of other desired attributes don't get discovered by students because they have no opportunity to allow them to emerge.