That's a disturbing article. At a certain point most of the talent for math/science is probably going to have to be imported from other countries (which is already happening to a large degree). I think it's interesting how sports always seems to win over academics. Even among the middle class or more affluent families, they are willing to spend hour upon hour each week shuttling their kids from practice to practice, but how many hours do they have their child do math? Or read? It is culturally acceptable to "push" your kid with sports, and sign the kid up for every sport possible, but god forbid encouraging a child to spend more time with academics.
There is a family in our school from India and they do place a lot of importance on academics. I don't see them as being particularly pushy, just very involved compared to "American" parents. Teachers in the school have made the nastiest comments to them about how they should back off and let their DD play with Barbie dolls and take her to gymnastics. Ironically, their DD does do those things. Their kids are very bright and excel naturally with academics, but all the teachers can see is that the parents must be pushy and demanding since the kids are so advanced. They probably think of me the same way, but I haven't had any comments yet. Half the time my kids didn't/don't even do their homework so I'm not sure how they could call me "pushy".
