IN A school system geared primarily toward accomodating the status quo, academically gifted children have always been a thorn in the side of educational policy makers. If educators support funding for academic programs tailored to gifted students, they perpetuate the unjustified, though in most cases understandable, stigma of elitism surrounding such programs and risk alienating the parents of less talented children. Conversely, if national policy makers neglect gifted children at the expense of the majority, those who have the money go to private schools, while those who cannot, become bored, unchallenged, and fall through the cracks of the school system.

In 1971, educational researchers decided to take action. Under the auspices of John Hopkins psychologist, started up the Center for Talented Youth (CTY), an organization aimed at identifying mathematically gifted students. Since then, Duke, Northwestern. Arizona State, and the University of Denver have organized talent searches modeled after the CTY experiment to identify precocious, intelligent youngsters and develop their untapped academic potential.

The Hopkins program selects seventh and eighth graders who scored in the top three percent in a standardized test, to take the SAT, which is normally administered to students in their junior and senior years of high school. To qualify for advanced courses offered in a special summer program at Hopkins, participants must score a 500 out of 800 on the mathematics portion of the exam or a 430 on the verbal. Both scores are slightly above the national average for high school students.

Recently, CTY again gained national attention for its efforts to seek out a larger number of potential prodigies. Last year, 15,479 students participated in the program--selected from 80,000 youngsters under the age of 13 who took the test--according to statistics provided by the College Board.

At a time when public education is so vulnerable to criticism from the outside, it is difficult to take issue with programs designed at raising the quality of education. And, when such programs are privately subsidized, as in the case of CTY, the argument for the plan is even stronger. Yet, as educators have pointed out, the legitimacy of such programs is suspect. In fact, as Gregory Anrig, director of Educational Testing Services, asserts, the issue is not primarily an academic one, but rather the more ambiguous and controversial question of how, and at what expense, should advancement play a central role in a child's life.

ONE problem with the program is the potential social repercussion of accelerated education. Though CTY does not encourage early entrance into college, many students do make use of their studies in the program to accelerate their academic careers, says talent search assistant Molly Longacre.

Precocious 12 years olds may indeed be ready to tackle differential calculus at the level of elementary math courses here, but are they socially prepared to live in a communal living environment with peers six years their senior. Are they even truly qualified at an age where many have yet to reach puberty to make such decisions?

The likelihood of youngsters emerging socially maladjusted as a result of such acceleration is uncertain. One participant who received his bachelors' degree from Johns Hopkins at 18 and is currently a professor at Northwestern told The Washington Post he experienced no real difficulties adjusting. Yet even if such programs are innocuous the National Council of Teachers--fearful of the "hurried child syndrome"--has publicly denounced the Hopkins experiment. And Anrig has also opposed CTY, wary that the net benefit students receive from the test might not compensate for the anxiety it produces.

A change in College Board policy barring certain age groups from the exam might be an effective deterrent to a surge of teenage graduate students, but such procedural remedies skin the larger issue of how to stimulate gifted minds. Opposition to programs like CTY is not the same as opposition to programs geared at academically students or standardized testing in general. Opponents worried about inappropriate academic acceleration that inevitably results when pushy parents, precocious children, and higher learning institutions join forces. Fortunately, with the mushrooming of advanced placement programs nationwide and increasing research on how to deal with gifted youngsters, the myth of the neglected gifted student is more fiction that fact. And though public education, particularly in inner city schools, has fallen victim to President Reagan's band-aid educational policies, magnet schools and other specialized programs offer talented students an alternative to accelerated education.

WHAT is really needed are programs that will successfully motivate and challenge students at the junior high and high school levels. If Johns Hopkins and other institutions of higher learning like Harvard are truly interested in fostering excellence, they must appropriate their funds where they will do the most good. Specifically, universities must help advanced placement programs in rural, oft neglected regions of the country where many gifted students go unnoticed, and bolster the quality and quality of offerings in those schools that already have solid programs.

"Academically gifted" is admittedly, a nebulous term. As such, it often makes formulating educational policy a complex task. Yet, "quality education," "development of potential," and "full capabilities" are equally incalculable. In attempting to center a talent search around the SAT which inevitably results in emphasizing college advancement and acceleration, the CTY and its followers may unintentionally be causing more harm--both to individuals and the educational system--than they realize. Unfortunately, such harm is tough to measure on a 1 to 800 scale.