We’re Not Even Allowed to Ask for Help: Debunking the Myth of the Model Minority (2011)

The quality of education available to Asian Pacific American students in New York City public schools is vulnerable to the same factors that shape the education provided to other children of color. Poverty, inequitable distribution of teaching resources, overcrowding, locked down schools, and serious deficits in the cultural competence of many administrators and some educators affect the schooling of Asian Pacific American children and youth as they do that of Black, Latino, and other communities of color.

“We’re Not Even Allowed to Ask For Help”—Debunking the Myth of the Model Minority is organized into four sections. 

This first section of three chapters sets the context for the rest of our report and includes highlights of our broad findings and some of our policy recommendations; an introduction to the myth of the model minority and the invisibility of Asian Pacific Americans (APAs) who live beyond the narrow parameters of that myth; and an opportunity to hear the voices of APA students and parents whose day-to-day experience of the city’s public schools can differ dramatically from that myth.  

The second section, also three chapters, describes the sorts of data and measures we developed; the geography of the educational environment of APA students; and an analysis of how various factors of school  climate and resources, as well as the overall structure of the school system in terms of race and poverty, relate to the  academic and other outcomes of APA students, be they model minorities or regular working class people of color like most of the students in New York City Public Schools.  

The third section stands alone as the chapter summarizing our main policy findings and presenting a number of recommendations to City Hall and the Department of Education. The last section is an extended technical appendix available with the digital version of this report online at CACF.org. 

According to the New York Times, in 2009, of New York City “Asian/Pacific Island” general education graduates (2005–06  cohort), more than one in three were deemed not college  ready, meaning they passed Regents exams but with scores that  predicted they would need remedial classes before tackling college coursework. Put more starkly, half of the cohort finished their fourth year in high school unqualified to earn Cs on basic college  coursework. Furthermore, according to state officials, only seven  percent of the city’s English language learners—a group that  includes many Asian students—were found to have graduated on  time and ready for college and careers.

And yet, the preconceptions of much of the public and  media of Asian Pacific American (APA) students are of youths— probably Chinese and Korean—who make up over 60 percent of  the enrollment of New York’s famous exam schools: Stuyvesant,  Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech. In fact, those students are  only about five percent of the APA enrollment in New York City  Public Schools. They are, however, the poster kids for New York’s  version of the Model Minority Myth, which homogenizes the diversity of cultures, languages, economics, and unique histories of APA communities and trivializes the very real academic and  developmental needs of their children. 

This report summarizes an in-depth investigation into the  educational fate of the other 95 percent. A quarter of so-called “Asian” enrollment, in fact, is packed into 31 of the largest schools in the city, including the three exam schools. However, another  quarter of the system’s APA students, about 34,000 young  people, attends nearly 1,200 schools spread throughout the city.  Ninety-four percent of the city’s public schools enroll some Asian  students, frequently in relatively small numbers and percentages. Over 2,500 APA students are isolated in 583 schools with no more than ten Asians. 

Our analyses relied heavily on a core of data for the 2007- 08 school year provided by the New York City Department of  Education (DOE) to the State Education Department (NYSED) for over 1,500 schools. We also drew on data submitted by individual schools to DOE for their annual Comprehensive Educational Plans (CEP), on mid-decade estimates from the U.S. Census American Community Survey, and on data summaries based on DOE’s annual Home Language Survey.4 In addition, our work benefitted from journalistic and academic articles, policy  analysis from advocacy organizations, and, most importantly, extensive input from APA students and parents from a cross  section of 27 mostly high schools. This latter qualitative work included 16 focus groups with students and six with parents as well as many one-on-one background interviews with service  providers.