Separating gifted children hasn't led to better achievement
When I was in middle school in the 90s, I think around 7th grade (~12yo), the school district experimented with a new way of organizing the student body where they separated us into six distinct, equally sized cohorts based on some evaluation of each student&#x27;s performance and capability. From what I could tell it was rougly:<p>1. Gifted &#x2F; clearly university-bound<p>2. Potential college prep<p>3. Community college<p>4. Normal underperformers<p>5. Little hope, likely will drop out<p>6. No future besides unemployment or prison<p>You took all your classes with your own cohort, rarely had to interact with anyone outside your cohort, and coursework was tailored to your level. It was glorious. I went from boring, slow classes and having to run and hide from tormentors to appropriately paced coursework and always interacting with friendly, nice, smart kids. My childhood mental health went on a noticeable upswing during this experiment. Too bad it ended around 3 years later and I was thrown back into the prison &quot;general population&quot; full of kids whose talents included arson and filing other kids&#x27; teeth down in the metal shop. Not sure why they ended the program, because it really made school bearable.