No one questions that there are very, very bright, high performing kids in various school systems, but we are talking about the educational system. I think that it can be fairly easily established that the disciplined, diligent performance of the Asian students is a product of their family and cultural involvement and values- not the school system.
In places like Chicago for example, where family structures are often collapsed and the culture/sub-culture places little or no value on education then the public school system fails them completely.
No one doubts that Silicon Valley has a subculture of highly educated parents coming from highly disciplined cultures- including the more focused parts of American society along with the rest of the world. But their kids would and will do well anywhere. At private school, being home schooled, being sent to another country to be schooled. But for the rest of the "public" in public education the California school system produces some of the highest paid teachers who produce students with some of the lowest reading, math, and other test scores in the country.
