When I moved to Sweden from the US, I was surprised to see that children born in Sweden, but with one parent from outside the country, were considered 'foreigners.' One of the books we read in Swedish class had a character who had a single grandparent from Chile. That contributed towards her dark eyes and complexion, so that another character asked "are you really Swedish?". I was astonished even, since my personal belief (being brought up in Miami during the 1970s and 1980s) is that nationality is not so stingy. My father and his parents were born in Canada, but Dad became a US citizen when he was a teen. I can't count the number of friends of mine whose parents are both from Cuba but consider themselves patriotic US citizens. Compare that to my dad's mother's mother, who forbade her daughter from dating my grandfather because she's a Norwegian Lutheran while he's a German Baptist. Those being very different cultures, you know.
These memories come to mind because the author, who is raised in the Swedish system, uses this same definition of 'foreign;' and it's a view I find rather un-American.
So when I read that essay, which excludes from consideration the rather large sub-population of people whose distant ancestors came to the US as slaves in the 1800s, who are by now fully part of the American system, with basically zero language or cultural ties to any ancestral lands, I can't help but think "so what?" I don't care if there's a sub-population which did better ... and why is race used in one place and immigration status used in another? Is the correlation with relative income more significant? It's easy to see how doing just one simple factor analysis isn't enough on its own to be anything more than suggestive.
BTW, the re-analysis on that blog shows that "the mean score of Americans with European ancestry is 524, compared to 506 in Europe, when first and second generation immigrants are excluded." Because the original analysis shows that Europe overall did better than the US, then I think it's equally reasonable to interpret the re-analysis as saying that Europe does a much better job of educating its first and second generation immigrants than the US does at educating its citizen with non-European ancestry.
In other words, since most of the excluded populations are black, the US seems much worse at educating citizens of African descent than of European descent. I would like that to change, so that all children have access to a good education, as well as to social services to help with nutrition, health, housing, and other factors that strongly affect the education and well-being of children.
These memories come to mind because the author, who is raised in the Swedish system, uses this same definition of 'foreign;' and it's a view I find rather un-American.
So when I read that essay, which excludes from consideration the rather large sub-population of people whose distant ancestors came to the US as slaves in the 1800s, who are by now fully part of the American system, with basically zero language or cultural ties to any ancestral lands, I can't help but think "so what?" I don't care if there's a sub-population which did better ... and why is race used in one place and immigration status used in another? Is the correlation with relative income more significant? It's easy to see how doing just one simple factor analysis isn't enough on its own to be anything more than suggestive.
BTW, the re-analysis on that blog shows that "the mean score of Americans with European ancestry is 524, compared to 506 in Europe, when first and second generation immigrants are excluded." Because the original analysis shows that Europe overall did better than the US, then I think it's equally reasonable to interpret the re-analysis as saying that Europe does a much better job of educating its first and second generation immigrants than the US does at educating its citizen with non-European ancestry.
In other words, since most of the excluded populations are black, the US seems much worse at educating citizens of African descent than of European descent. I would like that to change, so that all children have access to a good education, as well as to social services to help with nutrition, health, housing, and other factors that strongly affect the education and well-being of children.