COLUMN ONE : What’s Best for Young Geniuses? : The Chang sisters, ages 6 and 8, are trying to attend college. But they are caught in a cross-fire between their parents and officials who are threatening to arrest them, saying they should be in grade school.

Joan Chang sits at her desk in the front row, listening carefully and taking notes. With her baseball cap and book bag, she looks like any 8-year-old student--except this is college calculus and she is here against the law.

Joan, like her brother and two sisters, is trying to get a college education without the bother of graduating from third grade. But this semester, she has been officially barred from community college and threatened with arrest if she keeps attending class.

In her second year at College of the Redwoods, the pint-sized scholar has become a college drop-in, explaining in a soft voice that she loves calculus but didn’t much care for her year in elementary school. “The kids were mean,” she recalled. “They said mean things.”

The case of the four Chang children, who range in age from 6 to 13, has touched off a heated debate over what is the best education for brilliant youngsters--studying differential equations or learning how to get along with children their own age.

At the heart of the controversy is a cultural clash: On one side is John Chang, a Taiwanese immigrant so determined to get his children a college education that he was once arrested and hauled off the wooded campus in handcuffs. On the other side are college administrators who contend that cash-starved community colleges should not take the place of the beleaguered public school system.

“This is a test case of statewide policies restricting enrollment in community colleges,” said Cedric A. Sampson, College of the Redwoods president. “The bottom line is, we’re full up and we can’t become an alternative delivery system for K-12.”

The Changs are considered to be an enigma in this forested coastal region 270 miles north of San Francisco, where the population is 90% white and isolated from the rest of the state by what residents call the “Redwood Curtain.”

While the children have the support of many fellow college students and teachers, some see the eccentric John Chang as a zealot who is seeking to measure his own self-worth by the success of his children.

The Changs reveal few details of their background and remain a mystery even to their friends. Neither parent has a job or visible means of support, but they devote themselves to teaching their children at home. And for the most part, the quiet, well-mannered youngsters keep to themselves, without other friends.

But there is no argument that the youngsters are bright. The two older children began their college studies by the age of 10; recent IQ tests of the younger children place them in the gifted range.

The Changs were so intent on enrolling all four children in community college that the family moved here from Chico a little over a year ago after Butte College refused to admit the three girls.

At first, College of the Redwoods, just south of Eureka, accepted all four children. They completed at least three courses in academic subjects during the fall, 1993, semester, including Joan, who got an A in algebra at age 7.

This year, the college admitted 10-year-old Mimi and 13-year-old Matthew because they had shown their ability to study at the college level. Indeed, Matthew had received an associate’s degree in mathematics from Butte College when he was 11. At College of the Redwoods, he was named “Outstanding Physics Student” for 1994.

Sampson, however, refused to readmit Joan and her 6-year-old sister, Karen, this fall. He said he had not seen proof that the home-schooled youngsters met the college’s entrance standards or that the local school district could not provide the courses they need.

Last month, when Joan and Karen began attending math classes at College of the Redwoods anyway, Sampson sent the girls letters warning them they could be arrested for trespassing and face up to six months in jail. Coming to class, he wrote, “constitutes a willful disruption of the orderly operation of the College.”

The polite but persistent Mr. Chang, who apologizes for his scraggly, gray beard and a missing lower tooth, says his children are the victims of racial bias. He even filed a discrimination complaint with the FBI, but the agency declined to investigate.

“This is a very closed society,” Chang said in heavily accented English. “They worry that my children are doing better than their children.”

Sampson rejects any notion of prejudice, noting that the college admitted the two older children. But he said there are clear cultural differences between the college and Chang, who does not accept the American idea that learning social skills in elementary school is a valuable part of education.

“In some other cultures, a very high priority is placed on rote memory and regurgitation,” Sampson said. “They go all day, they study after school, and the parents drive them hard. You can’t impose that model on the American system.”

It is so unusual for one family to produce four prodigies that Chang’s critics believe he must be pressuring his children to achieve beyond their natural abilities.

But the Changs deny they have forced their children to excel and insist that it is the children’s thirst for knowledge that drives their accelerated education.

“We have never pushed our children, just encouraged them,” said their mother, Mary Chang.

Added John Chang: “We’ve been pushed by our children. We were assigned to be their slaves. We did not make the children what they are.”

American educators who specialize in teaching gifted children stress the importance of balancing challenging academic work with the opportunity to adapt socially. Ideally, they say, gifted children should receive individualized instruction in a setting with youngsters the same age.

“We really believe children should be kept with their age groups,” said Anabel Jensen, executive director of The Nueva School for gifted children in Hillsborough. “I have a kindergartner reading at a high school level, but he is in a kindergarten class. Emotionally, he is not a high school student.”

Sampson said there are a variety of options for the two younger girls’ education, including finding a program for gifted students in the public schools, enrolling them in private schools or hiring tutors. “He could find assistance. But what he wants is the college’s certification that his children are prodigies,” he said.

For Chang, the college’s refusal to accept his younger daughters has been wrenching. He pulled Karen from her algebra class after Sampson’s arrest threat, but has continued sending Joan to calculus. At the start of class Friday, a security guard handed Joan another letter from Sampson renewing the threat of arrest.

Apart from their community college courses and brief stints in public school, the children have received their education at the Changs’ home school.

The Changs are vague in describing their home study program. They do not hold organized study sessions, they said, but allow the children to study whatever they wish. The children are so absorbed by their studies, Chang said, he has trouble getting them to take a break to play.

Television also is an important teacher. The Changs speak Taiwanese at home, so the children have learned much of their English from TV. Watching educational channels is encouraged; the PBS show “Mathnet” is a family favorite. Programs with violence and sex are not allowed. “No kissing,” Chang said.

The parents give the youngsters all A’s in their home study courses, but have permitted little outside monitoring of their progress. They have complied with a state law requiring them to register their home study program as a private school but have avoided standardized achievement tests--even though high scores could prove the children’s readiness for college.

At College of the Redwoods, where students pay $13 a unit, John Chang has closely tracked his children’s work, talking frequently with their instructors, hanging around outside their classrooms and peering in the windows.

College administrators found Chang’s presence so disruptive last spring that they called Humboldt County sheriff’s deputies, who arrested him for trespassing. The charges were later dropped.

“There is a point at which parental involvement in a child’s education is excessive,” said Sampson.

College of the Redwoods also obtained a court order limiting Chang’s access to certain areas of the campus, such as the library. But Chang frequently wanders the campus anyway, skulking in hallways and hiding around corners to evade security guards.

“The issue for us is, how do we enforce our policies against a person who is very determined and won’t take no for an answer,” Sampson said. “We’re having trouble enforcing a state policy because Mr. Chang is determined his children should have a college education--an American inexpensive college education--without following our rules.”

The Changs live in a modest apartment in the little town of Loleta, a few miles south of the college. The living room is furnished with mattresses on the floor, a table with educational books and a large television.

During a recent interview, the Changs provided little opportunity for the children to speak for themselves as Chang hovered nearby, monitoring their answers.

The Changs also declined to talk much about themselves, and refused to divulge many details about their past.

According to their sketchy outline, both parents emigrated from Taiwan about 20 years ago and were married in the United States. Both said they graduated from college. John Chang said he is in his 50s and has more than one college degree, but the Changs will not say what college they attended or what subjects they studied.

As a child, John Chang said, he was a good student, especially in math. But he was forced to start working at 4, he said, and was working full time by 12.

Now, apparently, neither parent is employed, but Chang said the family is not on welfare. “Call me a retired businessman,” he said, declining to say more.

By the mid-1980s, the Changs were living in semirural Chico, 90 miles north of Sacramento, where they touched off their first local controversy by trying to transfer their two older children from elementary school to Butte College.

Chang said he realized Matthew was unusually bright when he learned his multiplication tables one afternoon before he turned 7. Matthew skipped first grade, but was soon getting beaten up regularly by classmates because of his better grades.

The Changs arranged for him to start taking classes at Butte, but administrators balked at admitting him as a full-time student. The Changs appealed to the Butte County Board of Education and won the right to enroll him. He received his math degree in 1992.

When Mimi was 5, Chang said, she started asking to go to college like her big brother. Chang tried to enroll her when she was 7, but Butte College refused to admit her. He alleged she was a victim of racial discrimination and sued the college to let her in, but lost.

The Changs then began searching for a community college that would accept their children. Last year, the family moved to tiny Loleta because they thought College of the Redwoods had agreed to admit all four children.

They have had no problem keeping Mimi enrolled. Like her brother, she has done well in her studies, receiving A’s in classes where grades were awarded. She is on track to graduate next summer at 11.

Karen began her college career at 5. In the fall of 1993, she received credit for taking basic courses in English, reading and writing--classes considered remedial for adults. She received her only grade, an A, in beginning swimming.

At the same time, Joan, then 7, received credit for basic reading and writing courses, along with As in algebra and beginning swimming.

But after their first semester, college officials began to question whether the two younger girls needed to study at a college level and refused to readmit them.

The girls continued attending classes last spring even though they were not enrolled. But this semester, when the girls returned, the college threatened to arrest them.

“We have finally reached the limit,” Sampson said.

The warning letters prepare the way for possible intervention by the county child protective agency if the Changs persist in sending the children to the campus, he said.

“Most people recognize on the face of it that a 5- and 7-year-old don’t belong in college,” he said. “These children belong in the K-12 system. We have no evidence they can’t get what they need there. We only have Mr. Chang’s word, and he is forcing the issue.”

The college president acknowledges he has cast himself in the role of the ogre in this drama: “It’s the big institution against these cute little kids,” he said.

Many students who have taken classes with the children support their bid to attend the college. Some say the youngsters understand complex mathematics better than they do.

“The students love them,” said Bob Cramer, 50, who is taking calculus with Joan and doubles as her baby-sitter. “Joan told me in class today, ‘This is fun.’ I’m pulling my hair out and this 8-year-old girl tells me, ‘This is fun.’ ”

But Rita Dickens, another calculus student, questions whether the parents have contemplated how destructive it may be for the children to lose their childhood.

“I think, ‘Poor kid. That’s a lot of work, genius or not,’ ” Dickens said. “The kid might be smart, but maybe she’d be better off being a kid. At least they’re not getting into drugs, but this may be just as bad in the long run.”

The children also have the backing of some faculty members who believe all youngsters should have the chance to study to the limit of their ability.

“People in education spend a lot of time talking about diversity. This is another kind of diversity,” said one instructor who asked not to be named. “Who’s to say that children can’t learn mathematics at a very early age but don’t because our school system says they’re not ready?

“I like Mr. Chang,” he added. “The children are adorable. I hope he succeeds.”

Even adversaries like Paul Mendoza, the vice president of student services who has battled with Chang for much of the past year, praise the children. “They’re beautiful kids,” he said. “They are not causing disruption. They are well-behaved children.”

The debate over the Chang children has highlighted the diminished ability of community colleges to accept whoever wants to take a course. State spending cuts have forced administrators to turn away students, especially in the areas of math and English. College of the Redwoods, for example, has cut its full-time equivalent enrollment from 5,099 last year to 5,028.

“We used to be open to everybody. Now we have to restrict enrollment,” Sampson said. “We’re a public commodity and we’re having to ration it. We have had to set priorities for who gets in the door.”

Even if the Changs succeed in enrolling all their children at College of the Redwoods, their troubles will be far from over. Even now, Matthew is more than ready to move to a four-year institution so he can study to become a doctor, his father said.

“I worry about my son,” Chang said. “I have to find a good medical school for him.”