I am an Asian American. From my personal experience, I think Asian parents (compared with other minorities) are generally more involved in their children’s education and more willing to sacrifice their own time/energy/interest for their children’s education, no matter what their family income level is.

I couldn’t agree with you more; great success story. In trying to figure out the reasons for their success, I looked up the stats on the school. It is known as the highest performing OUSD school. What interested me the most was the ethnic/race demographics of the students. The school is close to the “Chinatown” section in Oakland. Just so happens that the school is 93% Asian. Their success parallels many other schools who have a high Asian demographic. It seems that all Asian populations, regardless of their socio-economic background, seemingly value education. As an honest question to those of Asian decent who read this blog, I would like to know what you would attribute that success to?

Since most of my background has been working with Hispanic/African American students, I would be very interested in hearing first-hand what motivates the cultures of Asia to perform so well in school? The follow up question would be, what can we learn and apply to a culture of a school to emulate this performance? I have read many theories on this, but I always like to hear first-hand stories, it helps put academic knowledge into context.

Thanks for the post,
Rick

DUSD’s recommendation to deny the charter petition is on the agenda for the March 9 DUSD Board Meeting. http://bit.ly/aekRkO

API – 933 (English language learners – 935, Disadvantage – 928)
Free Lunch Program – 80%
English language learners – 58%

Thanks for your reply. Just want to clarify something about the school in the video I posted. I agree with you that early education is very important. But the improvement of that school has nothing to do with the early education. For that school, all the minority schools got into 5th grade with 1st grade reading level. By the time they graduated from middle school, they became 100% proficient in reading and math (better than the wealthiest suburb in New York City). The main reason for their success is that they introduced merit-based pay for teachers and held teachers more accountable for students’ performance.

Yes, right now this school is a diamond in the rough, but Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants to make it more widespread and less of a miracle. It definitely sets up a good role model for other schools.

If that really is you promising to stop posting on Around Dublin, and I kind of doubt it because of the brevity and the typo, I think you are making a mistake. As “Anonymous 3/4/10″ stated, “You are providing a valuable service by publicizing Dublin High students’ accomplishments, promoting school pride, pushing for higher standards, and educating the community about the high school.” You should continue doing that on this blog and elsewhere. With only 216 students per grade, Tassajara Prep is not going to have anywhere near the capacity to serve all the high school students from the east side. We need Dublin HS to become an outstanding high school for the benefit of all Dublin. Dublin HS needs to become academically comparable or superior to Amador Valley, Foothill, Dougherty Valley, California, San Ramon Valley, and Monte Vista high schools in order to keep parents from moving away from Dublin and to attract more families to Dublin. I think Tassajara Prep has the potential to do that, and I believe Dublin HS can too.

Are you aware that there are already more than 320 students in 1st grade at Green, Fallon, and Dougherty? That number is going to get much bigger as thousands of new homes are built in east Dublin, especially when more families with kids are attracted to the area because of Tassajara Prep. There’s a reason the district is planning to build three or four more elementary schools on the east side.

The school board made a huge mistake ten years ago when it cancelled plans to build a high school in Dublin Ranch, so thank goodness Tassajara Prep will be here in a few years to help overcome that bad decision. I predict that a lottery will be required for admittance to Tassajara Prep within the first few years, and possibly even the first year. I’m not real happy about that, because I would love for my kids to attend Tassajara Prep if the school turns out as I expect. However, I understand the appeal and advantages of a smaller high school, so I’m going to have to take my chances. Unfortunately, the reality is that a lot of east-side kids are not going to get into Tassajara Prep, especially as parents from the west side decide that they are willing to drive across town in order to have their kids in a smaller, college prep high school.

So it’s important that Dublin HS be the best high school it can be, because my kids may be going there. So please continue your efforts to promote and improve Dublin HS. Just stop bashing Tassajara Prep and your efforts will magically become all positive.

Dan

As for you Wikipedia numbers, the editor of the page may have quoted a wrong projection number from Dublin’s city website. The $101, 550 is an ABAG projection for 2015. Whoever copied it was probably looking at the projection for 2015. The actual the ABAG projection for 2010 is $96,100 according to the Dublin website. Gotta watch the Wiki, not always accurate. However, if you look at the Adjusted Gross Income from the tax returns for zip codes, I think you will see what I am referencing. AGI is probably more accurate than ABAG projections.

For instance, http://www.melissadata.com/lookups/TaxZip.asp indicates that the AGI for 94583 (the old part of San Ramon) was $131,884 for the 2007 tax year. Whereas, the AGI for 94568 was $87,777. A significant difference of $44,107.

As for the poor community statement that you brought up, please understand that I have never said the lower socio-economic community can’t succeed. That is the furthest thing from the truth. Being in public education, I have had the opportunity to work in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the state of California. My point, simply stated, is students from poorer neighborhoods have more barriers to overcome than other students who are in neighborhoods that are more affluent. Specifically, they have limited access to good preschools and early learning opportunities.

Recognizing this fact, I have been a champion of the DUSD efforts to establish a Pre-K program. The program was going to be housed at Murray until we saw a sudden increase in enrollment this past fall. Thus, the program had to move to Dub. El. I really liked the video link you provided. It just so happens that bringing quality preschools to low income neighborhoods was one of the major topics covered.

I too believe that if you can offer a quality preschool experience, we could eliminate the achievement gap. As for the students who come from the poorer neihbohoods, they can, and many do, overcome those barriers; however, if you look at the current, dismal CA state-wide data, the Achievement Gap is a well-documented occurrence. Granted you can find diamonds in the rough, but really we should be able to offer a quality educational experience since it is guaranteed by the CA State Constitution.