I didn't read your subtext in the article. I'm not convinced it accounts for very much. Also, Asian Americans make up 5% of the population. What do you think "Asian" has to do with the topic of this text?
Stanford is 1/4 Asian, plus another 9% "international". UC Berkeley is about 40%, plus another 10% international. And as I said, it's about competition for the elite slots at those and similar places. Look at, eg, the student body composition at very "hardcore", high stress schools like Thomas Jefferson HS, or Gunn HS (recent subject of http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-are-Palo-Alto-s-ki... ).
The parents of students in that kind of environment are the intended target of this editorial. It provides them with a coordination point.
Either way, I don't see an argument against the article's main thrust, namely "working children into depression, anxiety, and burnout is bad."
yes, yes, and yes.
but there is one more factor:
Asians have way higher IQs than whites.
In the past 150 years in China there were 6 major wars.
1. 1850-1864 Taiping Rebellion (My grandmother's great-grandparents lived this.)
2. 1894-1895 First Sino-Japanese war (My grandmother's grandparents lived this.)
3. 1911-1912 Xinhai Revolution (My grandmother's parents)
4. 1926-1928 Northern Expedition
5. 1937-1945 Second Sino-Japanese war (My grandmother)
6. 1946-1950 Chinese Civil War
Four social upheaval movements:
1. 1919 May fourth Movement
2. 1958 Great Leap Forward
3. 1966 Cultural Revolution
4. 1978 Chinese economic reform
There were also 9 famines during this period with total deaths of 120 million people during this period.
I think these events have contributed to a certain set of attitudes in Asians in the two generations after 1970, i.e Hungry and humble, as our ancestors were during those times, literally; the ones who survived, anyway.
The subtext is that the elite is concerned that traditional selection measures like grades & test scores have become totally game-able via a combination of sheer hourly input & collusion / cheating amongst certain subpopulations. This causes their kids to be outcompeted for very limited slots at elite institutions (even more limited due to massive subsidies to push people into the higher ed system, general population growth, and a desire to limit enrolment to preserve the social capital benefits of truly elite institutions).
Naturally there is pressure for those measures to be changed. Whether their characterisation of what's happening is correct is debatable, but that's where a good amount the pressure comes from.