To the Editor:

I read Michael Mendillo's "Stop Letting High-School Courses Count for College Credit" (The Chronicle, January 1) with great interest. Mr. Mendillo's argument, while eloquent, misses the point in a few places—most notably in the analogy he draws from baseball: "A sports analogy would be for a baseball player to say, 'If I hit a home run that travels more than 450 feet, it should count for a run in this inning and for a run in the next inning.'" In fact, neither the College Board nor schools nor parents nor students are making that argument.

In today's test-driven, standards-based, secondary-education environment, there are precious few opportunities for students to study subjects of their choosing or interest. Most of a high school teacher's time is dedicated to ensuring that various local, state, and federal curricular and testing requirements are met by all students. The teachers who have the talent, education, and drive to teach Advanced Placement courses should be celebrated for what they do, and the students who take extraordinarily difficult classes while being from one to three years younger than the average college freshmen should not be penalized for being more academically advanced than their peers—which would be the result of Mr. Mendillo's thesis. Students who are academically ready for college work, but who have not yet completed the various state and local requirements for graduation, would simply be held in place, spinning their wheels, until they satisfy the mandated credit and testing requirements.

Would it not be a better use of their time and talent to provide the best and most advanced education possible, so that when these gifted students arrive at college, they can enhance the classrooms they enter? It would be a tragedy to take gifted students and hold them back so that they can be in the many introductory college courses that Mr. Mendillo so cherishes. Rather than arguing that "the top students are simply not in the classrooms," he should celebrate the fact that these students will be the ones who move beyond basic requirements. These are the students who will be the next Rhodes, Marshall, and Truman Scholars. They are the next generation of Nobel laureates.

As a country we need to stop teaching to the middle. We should be celebrating excellence in education, and while Mr. Mendillo claims that he does that (which I have no reason to doubt), his proposal would do the exact opposite. College-level courses, regardless of where they are taught, do much, much more than the skill building that Mr. Mendillo cites in courses such as calculus or foreign languages. There is nothing wrong with having bright students excel, regardless of their demographic backgrounds.

Additionally, these courses are taught by dedicated educators, and while they may not have direct access to the Hubble Space Telescope themselves, they are just as current in the subject matter of the introductory courses they teach as many college instructors are. In fact, in terms of teaching-contact hours, a typical secondary-school teacher has direct instructional contact with students for over 30 hours per week. In comparison, a typical college instructor with a standard teaching load will spend nine hours a week directly teaching. That alone should indicate the commitment to the art and skill of secondary teachers. If any faculty members have doubts about whether an AP course is equivalent to a course taught at the collegiate level, know that every AP class taught must have its syllabus reviewed to ensure that it is, in fact, equivalent.

The rigor and depth of these classes is, in many cases, richer and more detailed than one would find in an introductory course in college. As an example, many AP courses are taught all year long. This gives students roughly 200 contact hours with their teachers, whereas in a collegiate setting they would have 54 contact hours. Which course is more likely to have depth and detail?

Mr. Mendillo also writes, "In how many AP classes in high school does the physics instructor say, 'At the last American Physical Society meeting, one of my students presented a paper on this very topic'?" In my experience teaching both AP psychology and introductory psychology at the collegiate level, I was able to say that more when I taught at in a high school than at my university. Yes, high-school students are presenting at regional and national society meetings. The nature of their research and science is of the same caliber as what is being done at the collegiate level.

To conclude, while I respect the argument, I must respectfully disagree. Each student's individual success is far too important to restrict for the betterment of an introductory lecture class of 190. (How much small-group discussion takes place in that setting?) Rather let's take the best and brightest, and challenge them to study more, work harder, and become the designers of the next generation of space telescope.

Craig W. Gruber
Lecturer in Psychology
Northeastern University
Boston