Should we allow earlier education specialization? (ie move them up grades but accept they'll be lacking in some areas) Or keep them in 5th grade until they are sufficiently good in all areas - maybe allowing them skip classes they're already excelling in so they have more free time for self-study?You're simply accepting that "grades" are an ideal concept, and that in order for a kid to learn higher math, they also have to accelerate English, history, etc. If you remove the concept of grades from the picture, you no longer have to call a kid who's really good at math a math specialist...you can just say he's very advanced at math, and on par with his age group at English and history and science.
Remove the preconceived notion that everyone needs to be studying the same thing in order to be in the same "grade", and you don't have this problem. Obviously some kids can self-direct their education to some degree. So, why not let them? If they can advance this way via online instruction, why on earth would you want to stand in their way?
I had a lot of bitterness about my school experience, because I was so often bored and slowed by the pace of my classmates. If I'd had the ability to set my own pace, I would have been much happier and much more successful. We're beginning to have the technology to allow kids to go at their own pace...it's obvious to me (and should be to any other adult who was a "gifted" kid growing up but shackled by the limitations of public school) that the only ethical thing to do is let kids learn as fast as they want to learn. It's the teachers and schools job to figure out how to accommodate that learning, not try to shackle it to a pace that matches the least common denominator.