Don't you dare let him turn down Harvard!

I sooo thought this story was going to end badly and I was going to have to write a blog post about the ultimate instance of undermatching. This is a huge issue among high achievers in the Hispanic community: pressure to put immediate family needs over education. (Yes, the choice is often that stark.) Latino parents say it is important for their children to get a good education. But they telegraph something very different when they put them on their cleaning and gardening crews. In this piece the parents are clearly, powerfully torn. The long view is hard to take, but your child will be a much greater help to the family over time if you let go of them long enough to finish high school and get through Harvard.

Kudos to Katherine Leal Unmuth of the Dallas Morning News for a straightforward, compelling story. Though while I was fine with keeping the experts out of the picture, I wish she would have added a sentence or two (and a few statistics) of national context.