Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed

by Jason L. Riley

When WNYC, the local NPR affiliate in New York, looked at 2012 admissions data for these selective schools, it found that a disproportionate number of the students lived in an Asian immigrant community in Brooklyn. “An analysis by WNYC found more than 300 students from three zip codes in the vicinity got into the city’s specialized high schools last year,” the radio station reported. Those three zip codes include parts of Sunset Park, Borough Park and Dyker Heights. They were among the 20 zip codes with the most acceptances to the elite high schools. Yet, the average incomes in those three zip codes are low enough for a family of four to qualify for free lunch (they range from about $35,000-$40,000 a year). That’s striking because most of the other admissions to the elite schools came from middle to upper class neighborhoods. The report went on to explain how diligently the families prepare for these admissions tests. It turns out that the most popular weekend activity for middle-school students is test preparation. While the parents work six or seven days a week in menial, labor-intensive jobs, the children, beginning in sixth grade or earlier, are preparing for high-school entrance exams. “Even the lowest paid immigrants scrape up enough money for tutoring because those high schools are seen as the ticket to a better life.”13 The parents push the children to do well academically, and the students in turn encourage one another. The culture places a high value on education...