Maybe the problem was that most of the kids' natural love of learning and creativity had already been extinguished by compulsory school. Or as Papert put it, "Children seem to be such remarkable learners on their own, but then they enter school."
That’s the Media Lab in a nutshell. It attracts builders from all over the world. And it naturally selects for people that are self-learners.
If we are thinking in terms of democratic societies here, then certainly the (utilitarian) point of education should be to raise the bar especially for the "average kids," shouldn't it? Don't we want a better average in a society that we all operate together? That's to say nothing of the richness in life that education can provide...
The utilitarian metric could also show that the average moves the most, and society benefits most, when those with the most potential can realize it. It's an interesting question. Either way though, I think it should be a basic constraint for an education system. Basically it's the same as saying classes should never be too slow for their students.
Not clear how the average is going to be "better" in any way by forcing them to.
> the richness in life that education can provide
The danger to deny the richness to those who can appreciate it.
Not in any society on Earth yet.
Perhaps the logic is that the bright, self-motivated kids already have an advantage, so helping them get even further ahead is a net negative.
I would imagine that if you're an education ministry with a limited budget you probably want to focus on efforts that are going to make measurable improvements for the average kids. I don't think "we deployed 1000 laptops, most of them are now paperweights or video game machines, but 10 kids are doing super creative things of their own initiative" is all that compelling to an education ministry.