ap is far from being an indicator of quality educational opportunity. the nrc in their analysis of ap biology in "fulfilling the promise" had serious questions. they found that some teachers "report that the ap course covers too many aspects of biology in too short a time, puts excessive emphasis on lecturing by the teachers, does not devote enough time to laboratory work, requires teaching to the examination, and induces some of the most academically able students to take a course merely to gain admission to college."(page 85) the nrc committee stated "we are concerned that the ap biology course has been modeled on introductory college biology courses that for many students are notoriously poor educational experiences... we are skeptical, however, about whether ap biology is commonly able to provide an exposure equivalent to that offered in most colleges." indeed, the surge in ap course-taking in the last decade has been a consequence of schools under nclb shifting more resources to their poor-performing students in order to make the every-increasing threshold for ayp based on minimal proficiency, leaving the average and high performing students with fewer options. the result has been to rely on ap and dual enrollment courses which pretend to be college-equivalent. another concern is that many students take high school ap courses in order to get out of any further course work in college where the actual coursework and labs may be motivating, and taking an ap course may very well serve to channel students out of the core disciplines. indeed, this is the advertised benefit advertised by many private prep schools. in spite of the surge in ap courses in many states over the last decade, we see a decline in american-born science college graduates. whether you look at naep or act scores, or the number of scientists produced per capita, kansas ranks near the top. florida does not. the fact that kansas teachers have not bought into a heavily scripted teach-to-the-test ap curriculum is our strength, not a weakness. this use of superficial assumptions, comparison with brown v. board of ed, and invention of an "oportunity gap" is journalistic blather. john richard schrock