Regarding David's post, here's a thought I posted on SCSU Scholars. Suppose you ran a school in a predominantly minority neighborhood, and you actually tracked kids by ability level. Suppose, moreover, that you let everyone -- including parents -- know you were doing it. Because intelligent kids have been ostracized in America regardless of their skin color or ethnicity, one answer could be to put them together, let them excel in one room where ostracism would not be within the classroom. Between classes? Perhaps, but how much worse could that be than now?

Such classes have long been the object of the war against excellence that has existed in our schools for the last forty years. One wonders whether the decline in respect for learning that Cosby and Lee have observed in the black community aren't part of broader trends.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/23/2004

I got into what were called "Gifted and Talented" track classes in middle school, and never looked back. I was never the star of my classes (more of a B/B+ student) but I would have been bored out of my mind in less ambitious settings. And ostracism is what you make of it: we had cheerleaders, athletes, in G&T classes; I took other classes (G&T was only in core subjects) with the 'general population' and rarely had any trouble, though I was easily identified as a nerd.

There's something to be said for not singling out 'failing' students by lumping them together and marking them; but there's nothing to be said for not letting smart and energetic kids excell.