My “old” friend wrote in his e-mail, If we took out of each racial group in that racist standardized API test, all the individuals who scored above 90% and put them into group A, the next 80%-90% in group B, and so on, most of the Asians would fall in group A, most African-Americans in group F — everyone distributed into the various groups according to their score.
However, there’d be a lot of “bleed over” between the various groups — that is in group A along with the Asians you’d find some blacks, whites, Latinos, etc. and so on for the other groups.
This is not good. We want a ranking that will minimize bleed over, so let us create some.
The first is a homework ranking in the place of the racial API ranking. You will have A – F groups according to hours spent doing homework with group A doing the most, falling down to group F the least.
Do another ranking of the API racial groups this time according to each individual’s time spent participating in class. Group A individuals would be the highest participation down to group F the lowest.
Do another ranking that focuses on each individual’s test scores throughout the school year – group A the highest down to group F.
You would title these three rankings the following:
Academic Performance Index Growth by Student Class Participation – 2010 Growth API Comparison (includes class work, asking questions, taking part in discussions)
Academic Performance Index Growth by Student Classroom Test Scores – 2010 Growth API Comparison
There would be a 1-to-1 correspondence between the different group levels and their API scores. That is every A group would be the top API results down to the F group scoring the lowest API score.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry
her family and culture too.
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It is absurd and stupid to blame teachers for students that do not do class work, homework, and study for tests or read books outside class.
Washington D.C. and the president of the United States are demanding that teachers do the impossible.
We must repeal the No Child Left Behind Act and enact into law “No Student and/or Parent Ignored” (NSPI), because that is what we are doing—ignoring the students and parents.
An old friend suggested this idea, and it is how America will resolve its problems with public education.
The reason students do not show gains on the Academic Proficiency Index is NOT because of bad or boring teachers or teacher unions. It is because most of those students are not doing homework, studying for tests or reading outside of school and many are not reading in school.
Since no one in Washington D.C. and/or the White House has placed blame where it should be, on students and parents, then why should students work?
Students must be held responsible to learn but they are not. Instead, many are encouraged to feel good and have fun and/or are ignored by parents.
After all, thanks to “No Child Left Behind”, parents are not responsible for their child’s education—only teachers have been held responsible. However, teachers cannot follow 150 to 200 students home and make sure they do homework, read and study each day.
A Kaiser Generation M2 – Kids/Youth/Media Survey (January 2010) said, “Total Media Exposure for all 8 to 18 year old’s average amount of time spend with each medium in a typical day was 10:45 hours
That average 10:45 hours was divided up with 4:29 hours spent watching TV; 2:31 hours listening to music; 1:29 hours on the computer; 1:13 hours playing video games; 30 minutes reading print media, and 25 minutes watching a movie.
If this is what the “average” child is doing daily in the US, when are they doing homework, reading or studying?
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.
How much of an “average” American parent are you? Take this quiz to find out. You may want to write the scores on a piece of paper then add them at the end to discover your final grade. The grade scale is listed at the end.
1. What describes the amount of time (on average) your family and/or children watch TV daily. (Read Avoiding the Mainstream Parenting Trap – Part 1 and Part 2 to understand the importance of the first four questions.)
6 hours (30 points)
5 hours (25 points)
4 hours (20 points)
3 hours ( 15 points)
2 hours ( 10 points)
more than 1 hour daily but less than 2 (7 points)
about 3 hours a week or less (no points—good for you!)
2. Video games
The video games in our house are kept in the child’s room and are not locked up. He or she may play any time and as much as he or she wants (20 points)
My child has one or more video games that are not kept in the child’s room, and (on average) the family and/or children play daily for twenty minutes or more (10 points)
My child has one or more video games that are kept locked up, and he or she plays once or twice a week (five points)
My child has one or more video games that are kept locked up, and he or she plays once or twice a month (one point)
There are no video games in our home (no points—good for you!)
3. If your child has a mobile cell phone, does he or she send and receive text messages and if so, how many (on average) each month?
1500 or more (50 points)
1000 (40 points)
750 (30 points)
500 (20 points)
250 (15 points)
100 (10 points)
50 (5 points)
My child does not have a mobile cell phone (no points—good for you!)
4. How much time does your child spend on the Internet on sites such as Facebook?
more than 2 hours daily (25 points)
between one and two hours daily (20 points)
about one hour daily (15 points)
less than one hour daily (10 points)
about three or four hours a week (5 points)
less than three hours a week (3 points)
less than two hours a week. (2 points)
less than one hour a week. (1 point)
My child is not allowed to social network in the Internet (no points—good for you!)
For example, a nutritious breakfast might be a bowl of steel-cut organic oatmeal (this may be bought in bulk and is not expensive) and/or one soft or hardboiled egg, and one or more of the following: a banana, apple, orange, some melon the size of a fist, or two kiwi (or another real piece of fruit) and a glass of “real” orange juice with no sugar added.
If you answered YES, the score is ZERO (good for you!). If you answered NO, the score is 50.
Note:Sources for healthy protein: grass fed organic beef or organic free range chicken (6 ounces a day); legumes (peanuts are a legume as are pinto and kidney beans) or nuts such as raw or dry roasted almonds, cashews, Brazil nuts, pecans, sunflower seeds etc. (no salt)
7. Is your child considered obese? If you do not know, go to Kids Health.org and read the five-part post about Overweight and Obesity. If you have trouble reading, there is a “Listen” function. (Read Avoiding the Mainstream Parenting Trap – Part 5 to understand the importance of questions 7, 8 and 9)
If you answered YES, the score is 50. If you answered NO, the score is ZERO (good for you!).
8. Does your ENTIRE family sit down at the same table without a TV or computer or video game or cell phone or music playing and eat a home cooked meal at least six days a week; does that meal include more vegetables than meat and sweet deserts, and does your family talk during this meal and no one can get up until everyone is done? Is the main beverage water?
If you answered NO, the score is 50. If you answered YES, the score is ZERO (good for you).
My child mostly earns FAILING GRADES and/or “D’s” from academic subjects such as history, science, math, English, journalism and/or a foreign language (PE, art, drama, chorus, band — do not count as academic subjects) EARN 50 points
My child earns “C’s” or better for all academic subjects (never earns a “D” or a FAILING grade) EARN 25 POINTS
My child earns “B’s” or better for all academic subjects (never earns “C’s”, “D’s” or FAILING GRADES) EARN 5 points
My child has earned all “A’s” from academic classes every year he or she has been in school. (subtract 100 points from the total—WOW!!!!!!)
NOTE: Good, demanding teachers do not give grades. Students earn them by reading both in and out of school, doing class work, doing homework and studying for tests and quizzes. At home, a child should read a half hour or more daily, 365 days a year. Books are the best source for reading. Libraries loan them free. There is no excuse to not read. The more one reads, the more literate he or she will be.
EVALUATION—To learn what your score means, compare your total with the following grade scale. [Earning an A, B or C may indicate you are not an “average” American parent. This is good!]
If I were grading this quiz as a teacher, an “A” would be a score between 42 (A-) and ZERO (A+)—Congratulations, you may be an outstanding parent!
To earn a B, the score would be between 43 (B+) and 83 (B-)—Congratulations, you may be an excellent parent!
To earn a “C”, the score would be between 84 (B+) to 124 (B-)—Congratulations, you may be a good parent.
To earn a “D”, the score would be between 125 (D+) to 166 (D-)—Improvement needed!!!
FAILURE falls between 167 (F+) and 415 (F-)
NOTE— Childhood as defined by the law in America is to the age of 18, but it is possible that an individual will live to be 80 or older. This means he or she will be an adult for possibly sixty-two years or more.
Poverty and poor health is not fun.
If you earned a FAILING grade on this quiz and are unwilling to improve as a parent, why did you have children? Was it an accident? Do you know that love means sacrifice and a willingness to say no and mean it? Why would you want to poison your children with bad food and focus on too much fun instead of having the child work toward earning a good education that may lead to a more financially secure and healthy future as an adult?
_______________________
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.
His latest novel is the award winning Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Against all odds, since the 1960s, the average Asian-Americans parent (including Chinese-Americans) held on to traditional parenting methods more in line with the Old Testament and old-world values.
Why is this?
Nicholas D. Kristof, writing for the New York Times, says, “Perhaps as a legacy of Confucianism, its citizens have shown a passion for education and self-improvement — along with remarkable capacity for discipline and hard work, what the Chinese call “chi ku,” or “eating bitterness”.
In Time magazine, Amy Chua said, “‘I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too.’ The tiger-mother approach isn’t an ethnicity but a philosophy: expect the best from your children, and don’t settle for anything less.”
In 2003, 49.8% of Asian-Americans over age 25 had bachelor’s degrees, compared to 27.6% of whites and 17.3% of blacks.
Also according to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2008 Asian-Americans had per-capita incomes of $30,292, whites had per-capita incomes of $28,502, and blacks had per-capita incomes of $18,406.
For thousands of years starting well before the birth of Jesus Christ, old word values, as defined by the Old Testament, guided parents and there was a reason for that.
There’s an old saying that there is “nothing new under the sun”.
Some will argue that were no jet planes, cell phones, laptop computers, fax machines, and mp3 players during ancient times.
However, the saying that “nothing is new under the sun” refers to the intangibles of life as defined by human behavior, not specific inventions and gadgets. The reason why most parents around the globe (such as Amy Chua) still raises children using old-world values was that time proved those methods worked best while rejecting what didn’t work.
In the 1960s, when the “average” American parent rejected those old-world parenting values for the soft, self-esteem building approach to parenting, they turned their backs on what worked best for millennia.
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
About a year ago, Business Insider.com published, “It’s Official, Asian-American Students Work Way Harder to Become More Educated Than Everyone Else” then went on to say Asian-American students take far more Advanced Placement (AP) classes during high school than most other Americans.
To verify this, I used the Academic Performance Index (API) in California to rank and compare four high schools.
Although Chinese are the largest Asian minority in the US, they are not listed separately but are included with other Asian-Americans, which are Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian, Vietnamese and Koreans.
Today there are about 14 million Asians in the US. As a group, Asian-Americans outperform all other racial groups academically.
At Rowland Unified School District’s Nogales High School, 76% of the student population is listed as Hispanic and 11% as Filipino. The Filipino/Asian students averaged 790 on the API while the Hispanic students averaged 627
At Oakland High School, three ethnic groups were listed. African Americans make up 26% of the student population with an API average of 517; Asians are 53% of students with an API of 667 and Hispanics are 16% of the student population with an API of 519.
At Los Lomas High School, 74% of the student population is white with an API average of 851 while the 11% Asian population averages 861.
At Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, 53% of the students are white with an API average of 895. Asians make up 32% of students and average 921 on the API.
Education.com says that Asian-American students generally fare better than other racial minority groups in respect to grade point averages, standardized test scores, or even numbers of high school, bachelor, and advanced degrees obtained compared to other racial minorities (National Center for Education Statistics, 2003; U.S. Census Bureau, 2003).
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
From the Asian American Alliance, I discovered that the Asian-American population has the highest marriage rate among all ethnic groups at 60.2% compared to the national average of 54.4%.
In addition, NEIU.edu reports Asian-Americans with HIV/AIDs have the lowest case rate in America with 4 per 100,000 compared to 58.2 per 100,000 for African-Americans, 10 per 100,000 for Hispanics and 6.2 per 100,000 for whites.
Last, the teenage birth rate per 1,000 women 15 to 19 was three for South Korea, four in Japan and five for China — the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the world.
In the United States, the average teenage birth rate was 53 per 1000 women 15 to 19.
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Here are the statistics that may help current and future parents of all racial and ethnic groups rethink parenting.
Some of Amy Chua’s critics claimed that her “old world” style of parenting leads to mental illness for her daughters and explaines the high suicide rate among Asians/Chinese (which isn’t true).
Before accusing Chua, those critics should have done some research.
According to Child Trends Databank, among males, suicide rates in 2003 (in America) were highest among the following:
Native American (24.7 per 100,000)
Non-Hispanic whites (13.3 per 100,000) – CAUCASIANS (about twice that of Asian-Americans)
Hispanics at 9.2 per 100,000
Asians at 6.7 per 100,000
Blacks at 6.6 per 100,000
Among females:
Native Americans had the highest rate of suicide at 9.0 per 100,000
Non-Hispanic whites at 3.0 per 100,000 – CAUCASIANS
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D. writing in Psychology Today explains Why Chinese Mothers Really are Superior (On Average). “It’s not stereotyping when it’s right.… Asian Americans have the lowest self-esteem of any ethnic group in the U.S., but achieve the best academic performance (and, among adults, the lowest unemployment rate).…
“On average,” Dr. Twenge says, “Asian parents use more discipline and insist upon hard work more than Western parents. And on average, their kids do better….
“Children are not the rulers of the household. Parents do have to insist on hard work, because kids left to their own devices too often squander their time and energy on video games, TV, texting, and Facebook (as statistics for the average American child show).”
America has a population over 300 million. Asian-Americans are less than 5% of that population at about 14 million.
However, statistics and facts prove that Asian-American parents (on average) practice the Old Testement methods of parenting when compared to all other ethnic groups and the results are sobering.
For the rest of this eight-part series, we shall see statistics supporting the average Asian-American parent as superior.
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
The obsessive Politically Correct, self-esteem driven parent held sway over how most Americans raised children.
Now, thanks to Amy Chua, there is a wakeup call to many future and current parents. Critics have accused Amy Chua of child abuse, being a narcissist, a liar, a backstabber, a psychopath, etc.
Amy Chua was also attacked for daring to say Chinese mothers were superior to the soft American parent.
In fact, Amy Chua was parenting as the Old Testament advises except for the spanking (she never mentions in her memoir that she spanked her children).
Maybe Chua should have spanked her younger daughter Lulu because she was rude, insulting and rebellious. Maybe she should have used soap and washed out Lulu’s mouth.
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
To discover how far the average parent in the US has gone to pamper the average child, the March 2011 Bulletin for AARP provided some disturbing statistics.
In Pampering Our Kids, AARP said, “When boomers finally became parents, they wanted nothing but the best for the little ones, driving sales for infants, toddlers and preschoolers to more than 17 billion a year.”
In addition,Money Management Works said, “Teen spending is playing a bigger and bigger role in the U.S. economy. Teenagers have money and they are spending it.… Despite the recession, 75% of teens are receiving the same or more spending money this year than last year.
“Clothing accounts for the biggest chunk of spending by teens, at 34%. Entertainment places second, at 22%, and food is third, at 16%.
“In a 2007 article by marketingvox, according to Packaged Facts, teen spending was $189.7 billion in 2006 and will be $208.7 billion by 2011. This is despite a 3% decline in the 12-17-year-old population over the same time period.”
Studies and statistics show that 80% of American parents (way above average) never attend a parent-teacher conference during the time their child is in kindergarten through twelfth grade (public schools).
This change in parenting also resulted in statistics describing today’s average American child and teen spending about 10 hours daily having fun watching TV, playing video games, social networking on Facebook, hanging out with other teens at the mall, or sending endless text messages to friends.
Politeness among the average American child and teen was out and rudeness was in. The old adage of the child “to be seen and not heard” was as good as dead for the average parent.
However, Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says, “‘Seen but not heard’ is not the best model for parenting children. On the other hand, it is infinitely superior to the abdication of adult authority that marks the current age.”
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 