Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement

Specifically, I had a parent that really, really wanted me to do honors math because my older brother did well at it(and he went on to get a math PhD etc.) and math seemed like a ticket to "success" - and so, in both middle school and high school, I was tracked into the middle options, and then within a few days of starting, parent had pushed around the bureaucracy to get me in honors, where I was not completely hopeless all the time, but suffered quite a lot from pressure to succeed and cheated a few times. Finally in my sophomore HS year I managed to fail a class and got switched to the lower track because for some reason you couldn't go from honors down to the middle option...and then some time later, parent tried to make me talk the school into letting me take the AP Calculus course anyway! Which they said "no" to, of course.

Basically, HS math ended with calculus, but even that "lower" track had a strong pre-calc foundation with some trig, linear algebra, etc. At most there was always about a year of difference at stake, in fact - so the post-tracking setup did not change that much. But when I went off to college all these feelings carried over and could not be left behind: I tried taking the engineering Calc courses, hit a wall with integrals, wasted probably a year trying to prove something to myself and developed a miserable self-outlook, settling on an economics degree because it had easier calc courses. (Had I realized that there was also some executive dysfunction in play it might have all been a lot smoother - oh well.)

Basically, parental worry about math tracking created a huge, huge sideline from taking on activities that would have actually helped along my development. It started early and to some extent wouldn't have been stopped by the system, but it would have presented less of a direct obstacle in daily life.

In contrast, the option of self-study and college courses as a supplement has been the path for the truly gifted learners, especially around SF(CCSF, SFSU, USF, and you can go visit Berkeley if that's not enough). That's a way more straightforward way to go about it w/r to a lot of academic topics.

- we have a website to track how hard the doctors are being bribed to prescribe certain medications. they were probably bribed even harder before the disclosure requirement.

- we have F-35 project--over a trillion in development according to some sources. many reports that it loses to its 40-yr-old predecessor. one only needs to look at the revolving-door between military brass and defense contractors to see how this happens. money doesn't even need to change hands while they're employed by the government--just dangle a juicy board position for when they "retire"

- in a similar vein, remember the number bob rubin pulled in the citibank/travelers merger

- DC is poster child for dropping a few hundred K through lobbyists and campaign contributions, then getting millions in return for it.

of course, none of this could ever happen in public education.

This is also the state policy in France. Classes for gifted people are absolutely taboo. There are numerous programs for low-achievers of immigrant suburbs and special needs children so the ministry knows they are differences between people but refuse to fund programs for smart kids. Moreover, the whole educational staff are leaning (far-)left and facts like genetics of intelligence are vehemently combatted. Source: was a smart kid that lost a lot of time at school; both parents in education.