Prominent alienist calls Americans stupid

Why does the Wall Street Journal hate America? James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed page has, for perhaps the first time in his career, deigned to cite a quantitative study of the educational performance of immigrants. Too bad it's slapdash and misleading:

Keep America stupid--seal the borders!
Why They Call Nativists 'Know-Nothings'
Blogger Harry Forbes notes something quite interesting:

The Boston Globe website published the pictures of each valedictorian in Boston's high schools and other high school programs. As you thumb through the pictures, it is striking how many of these students are immigrants. So many, that I decided to take some statistics. The Globe listed the country of birth for each student. For some US-born students I guessed that they were 2nd generation immigrants (for instance if they were Vietnamese). Almost 2/3 of the Boston valedictorians are either immigrants or children of immigrants. From my analysis: here is the breakdown of the 38 valedictorians:

1st or 2nd generation US 63.2%
Later than 2nd generation US 32.8%

Born in the US 52.6%
Born overseas 47.4%

iSteve readers being more analytical and honest, it was inevitable that one would actually explain what was going on:

That article (and the Journal, too – of course) seemed to miss the real point. These schools appear to only be in Boston proper, not the suburbs

Because Boston it so old, the de jure suburbs, like Cambridge, begin extraordinarily close to the city center, so it's easy to escape the Boston school district.

As we saw back in the tumult over school busing in Boston in the 1970s, most of the white American students left in the Boston public schools -- even back then -- were working class Irish kids in neighborhoods like Southie. Judge Arthur Garrity, who ordered the forced busing in the Boston schools lived in the wealthy white suburb of Wellesley, which was, surprise, unaffected by his decision.

The Boston Public Schools system: 58,000 students (44% black, 33% Hispanic, 14% white, 9% Asian). An additional 21,000+ students live in the district but attend private or charter schools.

The average SAT score of "college-bound seniors" in the district is just 895 (and that's under the new, easier scoring system that began about a decade ago. The statewide average is 1047, and no doubt a higher percentage of seniors are college bound than in Boston, so the real gap is even larger than 150 points (which is about 3/4ths of a standard deviation).

So, if diversity is so wonderful, how come the white parents of the Boston area won't send their kids to diverse schools, other than elite schools with competitive examinations?

Anyway, the current debate is mostly about illegal Mexican immigrants. Although 33% of the students are Hispanics, none of the 38 valedictorians was from Mexico.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer