new report on asian american students

According to a new government report, several Asian American groups are not well-prepared—academically or financially—to succeed in college: Report refines image of Asians. Take that, model minority stereotype. I know that a lot of people regard Asian American students as brainy, successful, affluent over-achievers, but many APA groups aren't making the grade. While many Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indian students typically do well in school, the Government Accountability Office reports that Pacific Islanders and Southeast Asians of Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Thai and Burmese descent often don't enroll in the rigorous math and reading classes necessary to succeed in at the college level. Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander youths are also more likely to need outside financial support. A copy of the government report is available for download here. I think the quote from L. Ling-chi Wang, chairman of the University of California-Berkeley's ethnic studies department, pretty much sums it up: "The report confirms the need to avoid making national generalizations about Asian American achievements in education and conflating all Asian American subgroups as if all Asian-Americans are homogeneous." Indeed. It also demonstrates the importance of the "Count Me In" campaign.