Most teachers have no awareness of how the petty status games they play in their classrooms deeply impact the performance of their students. Many teachers also don't understand that if they can't communicate an enthusiasm for the subject, then they've failed as educators.

Let me try to better explain what I'm trying to say, as a series of steps:

1. Teachers start treating everyone as smart

2. To treat everyone as gifted, more challenging material has to be introduced.

3. As a result of increased motivation/whatever, the size of the gifted student pool doubles. 80% of the class is still not at a gifted level.

4. No Child Left Behind, morality, failing students, angry parents come into play, and educators are forced to answer questions about the other 80%.

5. Two problems are now in play: First, there is the failing 80%. Second, of the 20% of gifted students, 10% is smarter than the other 10%.

6. Because there can be no tier separation of students (gifted/not gifted), material must be taught the same way, and the same material must be taught (otherwise, discrimination?)

7. Educators have a decision to make: Teach dull material that suits the last 10% and 80%, or teach engaging material that suits the top 10%, but is difficult for the second 10%, and near impossible for the 80%.

8. Choice A results in the top 10% of students losing out on an education, and Choice B results in 80% of the class failing.

9. I hate to bring this up for a very liberal and optimistic audience but: the 20-80 rule is very prevalent in society. It's inevitable that the top 10% will probably account for a good 50% or so of the nation's GDP and innovation when they're older (no, I have no evidence, but it makes sense).

Are you beginning to see my point? I went on a first-date last night, and compared my high school experience (didn't learn a thing, wasn't told about SATs, people were stabbed, no AP/IB) with my date's high school (UTS in Toronto... 2 entrance exams to get in, contests and opportunities made available, etc). I'll tell you now, that I feel like I missed out on a lot of opportunity. By changing education to this model, you'll find more people who feel that way (maybe not as extreme).

PS. My education was so bad, in fact, that by the time I took my SAT II subject tests, I know I needed 800s and I hadn't learned 70% of the material in Math II, Physics, or Chemistry. I bought books, and for the first time in high school, I actually studied.

2. To treat everyone as gifted, more challenging material has to be introduced.

Thank you for the detailed step-by-step reply to the comment above yours. Looking at your first two steps on the basis of international comparisons, I would say that the empirical observation of what happens in countries where step 1 and step 2 are followed is that learners IN GENERAL become smarter and reach higher levels than learners in the United States generally do. I am most familiar with the situation in Taiwan (where my nieces and nephews live, and where my wife grew up and I and my children lived for a time). The international comparative study TIMSS

http://pirls.bc.edu/timss2007/PDF/T07_M_IR_Chapter1.pdf

shows that the entire bell curve for certain countries is shifted to the right, with "average" level of students in those countries being close to the gifted level in the United States, or, from another point of view, the "gifted" level of the United States being barely above the "average" level of those countries. (See Exhibit 1.1 on pages 34 and 35 of the linked document for a beautiful example of a statistical chart comparing score levels in different countries.)

The international comparisons show that learners rise to higher expectations. Examination of the poor (by international standards) performance of the top students in the United States

http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented/

suggests there is plenty of headroom in the United States population that hasn't been explored by the typical United States curriculum. So it is commendable that the researchers mentioned in the submitted link are trying to test the limits of the United States population and see how much academic performance can increase here, as it has in other countries I know during my lifetime.

Why? I see no logical reason for this to be the case. I know in my elementary and middle school the gifted programs were actually easier than regular classes, and I would assume that this is actually fairly common if not the norm. John Taylor Gatto talks a lot about treating his kids like they're gifted, and if anything his classes seem much easier than normal too. (He doesn't actually believe that more than a tiny percent of kids are really gifted, but AFAIK the way he treats them is basically in line with what most education theorists who advocate this would endorse.)

There are two independent factors here:

1.a. Assuming the students have a high IQ.

1.b. Assuming the students can benefit from being like and paid attention to.

If you actually read the article, you find that they are talking entirely about 1.b. One of the student groups is African, so they have a mean IQ around 85. Vanishingly few of them are going to be studying calculus prep at age 13 (option 1.a.). They also explicitly state that they are teaching using techniques used for gifted classes, not the subject material.

So what they are really doing is moving kids out of warehouses and putting them in actual, you know, schools. Amazingly it turns out that an average IQ of 85 is enough to learn useful things.

I didn't see a word about defining gifted down or watering down the school experience of the "real" gifted students.

I don't think your super stimulative genius level classroom actually exists...

The whole point of this is that the teachers were not special teachers. The students were not special students. But the joint exercise they did was new and interesting. It is more about changing teachers' attitudes and skills than about stratifying resources and kids into gifted and not-gifted.

You might be saying that sea changes are impossible due to entrenched interests in education. I do think some reform there is very important. But I also think that as administrations and states see the benefits for teachers and students, they will start gravitating in this direction.