[jgesture]

I have never read, heard or observed that any race is, intrinsically, intellectually superior to another. Give this, your comment isn't interesting.

Now, I have read, heard and observed that Asians tend to have a different cultural emphasis on academics. Given this, it seems much more reasonable to suggest that the problem in the US is that the culture doesn't value learning.

[yummyfajitas]

Given this, it seems much more reasonable to suggest that the problem in the US is that the culture doesn't value learning.

Asians in the US don't seem to have this problem. As a result, they perform as well as Asians in Singapore, Japan and Shanghai. This strongly suggests that schools are not responsible for the difference. After all, if American schools sucked and school quality mattered significantly, shouldn't Asian Americans be dragged down as well?

You can debate whether it is cultural factors or intrinsic intellectual superiority. It's irrelevant for this conversation. The fact is the study seems to be measuring student quality but attributes the differences to school quality.

[jgesture]

Making a general statement about American culture, which I did, doesn't, necessarily, say anything about the details of the culture. As you suggest, and as I've also generally observed, among the Asian Americans that I've met, they tend to retain a culture that's more interested in academics than what is generally found in the American culture.

I think you allude to a good point that I would like to restate.

In this study, and in others like it, the blame seems to be put on the educational institution. But, it's not hard to see places where success is gotten independent of the institution (like, for your example, Asian Americans). So, it seems wrong to put all your faith in and all the blame on the institution.

I've tutored 100s of people and I've done lots of independent learning and, based on my interactions, I think I can say that the schools could be changed however you want and they won't fix the problem in America. See, the students that I've tutored didn't mainly have a problem in understanding the material, as far as I could tell, they had a problem in not wanted to learn. And, if I can teach myself calculus, physics and programming, you don't need schools to learn things.

As far as I can tell, one large problem is that, in America, it's more prestigious to be a manager, lawyer or securities trader than it is to be an engineer or scientist. Engineering and science is associated with curiosity and learning (things good schools should have), the other disciplines are more associated with prestigious and financial comfort and generally are not as socially or economically valuable. There's an interested piece in the New York Times on this (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2598158).