The New White Flight

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by JoAnnP38, Nov 19, 2005.

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  1. JoAnnP38

    JoAnnP38 Member

    I find this article disturbing in many ways:

    The New White Flight
     
  2. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I suspect it has something to do with the fairly recent trend I've noticed, of parents refusing to hold their children accountable for anything.

    It's a lot easier to send Muffy & Brad to a mediocre school where they'll get straight-A's, and therefore not hurt their self-esteem. :rolleyes:
     
  3. JoAnnP38

    JoAnnP38 Member

    :sigh: How true :(
     
  4. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I wonder how much of this is 'white flight' and how much is simply due to the fact that white baby-boom and gen-x families tend to have fewer children than Asian families.

    Cupertino is 48% white, 24% Chinese, 9% Asian Indian, 5% Japanese, 4% Korean, 4% Hispanic, and the rest everything else. It's a rather upscale place, low crime, good schools, with good race relations. (The Asians definitely share the whites' upper-middle-class values.) Home prices have been rising like a rocket. (Million dollar homes aren't that unusual any more.)

    So, if the average white household has maybe 1.8 kids or something, while the Asians have three or four, that's probably where your 1/4 and 1/3 white school enrollments are coming from.
     
  5. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    What Bruce and JoAnn said. My strongest emphasis added.

    Interesting analysis of the numbers, Bill. Thanks.
     
  6. blahetka

    blahetka New Member

    I'd like to show another side of the Silicon valley equation.

    I am the chair of the advisory board for the Academy of Finance at Independence High School, a high school on the east side of San Jose with about 4100 students. I am also part of their mentoring program. The school has a high number of Asian, Latin, with white students as well. Many of the families have English as a second language.

    The academy programs (there are others besides finance) serve two purposes. First, it provides support to students to keep them intersted to stay in school. This is support coms in many forms including trips to financial institutions (i.e. theFed Reserve in SF) and other companies, interviewing skills, etc. Second, it shows students that it is possible for them to go on to college. Over 98% of our academy members go on to post secondary educartion (Community college, etc).

    Parental support may be another aspect as to why students in Cupertino and other affluent high schools. In some districts parents need help because of language barriers or in some cases just understanding the US education system.
     
  7. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    Good point whether or not it applies to this case. There are fewer white children and more non-white children than there used to be so schools and school districts will "turn" regardless of any other factors.
     
  8. edowave

    edowave Active Member

    Since we are talking Silicone Valley, we also have to consider changes in the high tech industry.

    Families don't typically move because school is too hard. They move because mom and dad don't have a job there anymore and can no longer afford to live there. Since manufacturing is has moved to China, it is no surprise that mom and dad's replacements are Chinese.
     
  9. Guest

    Guest Guest

    And mine!
     
  10. Mr. Engineer

    Mr. Engineer member

    That is absolutely a false statement when it comes to this particular issue. It is happening here in Fremont at Mission San Jose. People are under the illusion that MSJ High is better than for instance American. BS - it is really about the parents. I took my son out of MSJ because the academics are ridiculous -- both this school and the school mention only focus on math and the sciences, putting everything else way down the list. Is this really a good thing? Shouldn't kids - well, be kids? If you drive down these neighborhoods, you won't find kids on the street playing. Where are they? They are locked in their houses studying all of the time - constantly.

    I have a few close colleagues who were first generation from Taiwan and China. Do they think that this is a good thing? No - it isn't. Having straight A's doesn't mean that you can socialize with one another or even aclamate to your new society. If anything, it is driving these kids to be separate from the American society in general. There is an additional drive by the parents which affects the kids. According to my colleagues, there is severe mental and sometimes physical abuse for not getting the A on a test. One colleague hasn't seen his father since college because of this (he was ONLY a B student at Stanford, not good enough for his father).

    Self esteem is important. And since schools are focusing more on teaching to pass the tests instead of teaching to actually learn something, I have seem a lot of children who are not as smart as others have very low self esteem. I have to constantly work with my son and assure him that he can be successful as long as he tries.

    We are lucky in the United States. We have a solid system of secondary education available and relatively cheap. People like myself who didn't get it in their youth have that second chance as an adult to pick themselves up. I went from being a C- student in East Oakland to an MBA (in December) making over 100K a year. You just have to want it -- and sometimes it happens later in life. This wouldn't happen in most of Asia and certainly not in India. If you don't make it before you are 20 - forget it. The competition is much greater. This type of competition is brought here when they immigrate. (and as stated previously, it is not such a good thing all of the time).

    I think despite all of the rhetoric, school are much tougher now than in the 1970's when I graduated. All you had to do then to was show up then. (and half the class was stoned then) Now you are constantly tested and have to complete a community service requirement.
     
  11. Mr. Engineer

    Mr. Engineer member

    That is Silicon - not Silicone. Silicone is just for Breast Implants and caulking. Silicon is used in semiconductors.

    Manufacturing is moving to China in some instances. Some is staying here in the US (but usually out of the valley). But you will see a funny thing - in nearly all of the high tech industries in the US, the engineering and adminstration functions are staying right here in the Valley - everything from Cisco, AMD, Intel, Lam, etc. There is a good reason for this - despite urban sprawl, it is still a much better place to live than Phoenix or Austin. (IMHO)
     
  12. Mr. Engineer

    Mr. Engineer member

    The average million dollar home in the Cupertino wouldn't be worth $50K on the Kansas plain. Have you seen some of the junk passing as million dollar houses? Flat tops and these Stanley Davis crap homes built in the 1950's.

    Even in Fremont, the 1400 sq POS foot home that my ex-wife lives in within the MSJ High District goes for nearly 900K - about 100K more than my 2100 sq foot much newer home in North Fremont. Amazing -- just amazing. Time to move to Chico!
     
  13. blahetka

    blahetka New Member

    I call this area........ Silly-Con Valley.

    It's a bit of a swipe at some of the past manglement.... Ummmmm..... management teams that apeared and disappeared.
     
  14. Mr. Engineer

    Mr. Engineer member

    I call it the Sillycone Valley myself. - lol

    Of course it is a great place to live.
     
  15. mattchand

    mattchand Member

    Also sad that someone would name their kid "Muffy". ;)
     
  16. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    As a teenager, I was well on my way to juvenile deliquency, until my parents shipped me off to a military high school, where I was literally, not figuratively, locked away for two and a half hours, every night, for mandatory "Call to Quarters" (study hall).

    Guess what? I went from C's & D's to the Dean's List, almost overnight. That military school was also the only high school in Virginia to have (last I heard) never had a student fail the mandatory Virginia HS graduation exam.

    As for socialization, I seem to have turned out just fine. I have an awesome wife, two beautiful children, and a large circle of friends. My only social shortcoming seems to be spending too much time on a certain Internet discussion board. :D
     
  17. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    In a similar vein, it was tremendously controversial a few years ago when some colleges at UC Berkeley changed their admissions criteria to reflect more than just grades and test scores, but also extra-curricular activities.

    There was much candor, as I recall, about the fact that if the changes hadn't been made, the entering class (undergrad and graduate) in the sciences, engineering, and math, would be overwhelmingly Asian, and the older alumni (and their checkbooks) would be peeved.
     
  18. edowave

    edowave Active Member

    Guess my mind was in the wrong place!

    When I applied for my PhD program at UF, I was concerned because I didn't think I did too well on the GRE (1180). I asked my adviser if I should retake it and was told "Don't worry, they would like to see some home grown students again." (Almost all of our students are from overseas, mainly India and China.)
     
  19. blahetka

    blahetka New Member

    I didn't realize breast implants required caulking. ;)
     
  20. Clay

    Clay New Member

    Same

    The only thing I know about white flight is the yuppie I threw off the balcony at my condo. Now, when you start talking silicone you hit the mother-load. There are some quacks driving my Ferraris around due to enhancements I financed. Too bad the quacks couldn't do a brain transplant. One loses attraction without the other.

    Now you guys can get all serious again.
     

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