Debate Over Advanced Placement Tests

As a teacher of advanced placement U.S. history, I take exception to the disparaging remarks made by Harry Pachon (“ ‘Merit’ Is Fine, All Else Being Equal,” Commentary, March 24).

Pachon hasn’t been keeping up with what’s going on in our high schools. He knows nothing of “open enrollment,” which allows students of whatever income level to attend schools of their choice; assumes incorrectly that schools in affluent neighborhoods offer more AP classes than those in low-income neighborhoods; and claims that the grade point differential earned by AP students isn’t deserved.

My AP students, who come from quite diverse backgrounds, were quite amused by Pachon’s assertions of their affluence. And students who take AP classes work very hard, in fact do college-level work, for which they deservedly earn that grade point differential.

Without the differential, an A in a regular class was easy for a bright student to achieve without much effort--so why take the tougher class? The UC system finally realized in the 1980s that straight-A students with “regular” classes had a much lower survival rate in college than students who take more challenging courses.

All this was hashed out 10 years ago. We have a totally different problem today--preferential treatment for those who are (in Orwell’s phrase) “more equal than others.” Let’s address the current scandal without scapegoating hard-working AP students.

ABRAHAM HOFFMAN

Woodland Hills

* I feel that Pachon is going after the wrong people. It is true, all people should be on equal footing in the college admissions process, but change needs to begin in the colleges. If the colleges no longer recognized these “inflated” test and grade point averages, then the high schools would gladly change their ways. But as long as the colleges recognize the “merit” of an applicant in the form of SAT scores and inflated grade point averages, there is no reason to handicap “affluent” students because they are adapting to the system to help themselves, as most Americans would.

MIKE AUNG

Diamond Bar