Austin,

You are missing the whole point of my NAPS proposal.

What you are recommending will never happen. Developing a unique curriculum for The Top One Percent as you suggest will require a separate dedicated faculty that will drive costs through the roof.

The only new curriculum element in NAPS is my Colloquy. All of the Advanced Placement courses are standardized, and all of the university courses are already being taught on the campuses of the 150 public research universities that would host NAPS across the nation. The AP courses would be NAPS-only, but there would be no sections of any of the university courses that would be dedicated only to the NASA Scholars. Instead, the NASA Scholars would fill the empty seats in the course sections already scheduled to be taught, and their fellow students in those classes would include regular university students.

The point is this: my NAPS proposal is a fill-the-empty-seats proposal. My argument in favor of NAPS in this regard is that it makes economic sense � a whole lot of good could be accomplished at very little cost.

Consider the following excerpt from my proposal:

http://nasa-academy-of-the-physical...11/first-model-university-of-oregon.html

NAPS focuses on the �foundations� courses in physics for its students for three reasons: 1) NASA Scholars are gifted; 2) the foundations courses are math-based at calculus and above, and therefore provide understandable applications in physics that make it easier to learn calculus; and 3) the foundations courses do not fill up.

NAPS is viable only if its cost of operation as a school is affordable to the state, and it is certainly affordable if its UO expense is largely invisible and essentially free. After the UO�s Fall Term 2008 registration was completed, the following spaces were still available: Organic Chemistry I � 133 out of 400; Organic Chemistry Laboratory � 42 out of 248; Foundations of Physics I � 13 out of 134; Foundations of Physics II � 11 out of 48; Computer Science I � 24 out of 110; Elements of Discrete Mathematics I � 8 out of 100; Calculus I � 52 out of 352; and Introduction to Differential Equations � 14 out of 72.

Remember, NAPS has a target enrollment of 34 students per grade level. If the UO�s Fall Term 2008 registration was usual, then only Foundations of Physics I and Elements of Discrete Mathematics I seem likely to be over-filled in future terms by enrollment from NAPS if another section is not added in each case. So, in the general case, NASA Scholars will simply fill available spaces that are currently going unfilled in courses that are being taught anyway, despite under-enrollment.

NAPS will teach AP Chemistry according to the UO model: in this case, a general lecture to all 34 students and an accompanying separate AP Chemistry laboratory class that has three sections, with a maximum enrollment of 12 students per section. At the UO, Organic Chemistry Laboratory (CH 337) sections have a maximum enrollment of 13 students each, and Advanced General Chemistry Laboratory (CH 237) sections have a maximum enrollment of 11 students each.

Excluding the UO faculty for the above-mentioned courses, NAPS will function with just four �high school� teachers: a teacher for AP Chemistry (who will also teach math), a teacher for basic computer programming and math through pre-calculus, a teacher for AP Economics and AP U.S. History, and a teacher for AP English Language and AP English Literature. NAPS will have no electives in its �high school� curriculum. Except that some students will be especially advanced in math and will take calculus as juniors, all NAPS classmates will take the same �high school� classes every year. As stated above, NAPS juniors will separate into three groups according their interests regarding their UO Duck Link classes.

It is very important to note that pushing enrollment above 34 NASA Scholars per grade level risks two bad outcomes: 1) having to have more than four �high school� teachers per NAPS, and 2) having to teach more than one section of the shared �high school� classes. An enrollment of 34 scholars per grade level is an outer limit that is doable only because it is reasonable to expect a well-behaved, productive classroom from 34 highly intelligent students who are motivated to be there. If any enrollment adjustment were made, it would be down to 24 scholars per grade level.

* * *

Steven A. Sylwester