When I was young, we used to call Early College high school. Today, Early College – granting college credit to high school students – is touted as an answer to the call for more students to earn college degrees. We could attain this leap simply by granting college degrees at high school graduations. Thus, many politicians could claim instant success.

Early College programs such as the one proposed at Harding High School often sound much more impressive than they really are. The new East Allen Community Schools program, according to The Journal Gazette, “would offer college courses taught by district teachers overseen by university administrators.”

At a time when high school teachers are strained to provide remediation for students, it seems odd that administrators are suddenly transforming high school teachers into college faculty. Many high school teachers are qualified to teach college students and do so quite successfully at traditional colleges. But simply taking a high school class of high school-age students and calling it college does not in fact make it college.

Here’s an example: A new student at Manchester College arrived with a record for a dual enrollment class in College Writing. The course was taught at a high school by a high school teacher. The student received a “C” in it. She also received college credit and a college transcript. Like many institutions, we trusted that this was a legitimate university course and that the student could write satisfactorily at a college level. (College transcripts do not indicate whether a class was taught on campus, online or at a high school.)

We exempted her from our College Writing class that is required of our first-year students because she had already received credit. She has subsequently struggled mightily with classes that demand writing because she came to us unprepared. Her standardized test scores in English were below average and her advanced placement scores were low, yet she had that Early College experience.

High schools are now evaluated on the number of advanced-placement and dual-enrollment classes they offer rather than the success of their students in those courses.

According to ACT, only 25 percent of students nationwide who took the standardized test met or surpassed the four ACT benchmarks. The vast majority of students who take the advance placement English language and composition test score lower than 3 on a 5-point scale.

It is a disservice to encourage students to take college classes before they legitimately are ready in the hopes that having many hours of college credit or an associate’s degree, along with a high school diploma, will make them learned or prepared for the workplace.

It would be a better use of resources to make sure high schools are preparing students for college, not just awarding them certificates. It is far easier for students to receive college credit via dual enrollment than through advanced placement – which has national standards – and this temptation has become too alluring for school administrators.

College courses tend to be faster-paced and require more independent learning. Universities are seeing with increasing frequency students unprepared for the pace or level of college work.

High schools should prepare college-bound students for success at college. The majority of high school students just need to acquire the study skills, the desire to learn and some important building blocks that we as colleges can mold. When they come to us both underprepared and overcredentialed, it can make our work ever more difficult.