>One of the silliest things about this entire argument is that there are only a handful of prodigies born every year, and most of the "gifted" kids aren't really any brighter than their classmates, they just get more attention at home
This is extremely toxic dogma and your anecdote does not disprove the fact that competence is roughly normally distributed. If we do not collectively acknowledge this fact and allocate extra resources to high achievers, we are handicapping our society in some misguided pursuit of an impossible equitable utopia.
Almost all kids who are in accelerated programs are there because they already HAVE extra resources at home. These are the people who are going to be ahead anyway. I'd rather lift the bottom up first, which is where the opportunity to benefit society the most lies, and then worry about using additional resources on the top.
This is extremely toxic dogma and your anecdote does not disprove the fact that competence is roughly normally distributed. If we do not collectively acknowledge this fact and allocate extra resources to high achievers, we are handicapping our society in some misguided pursuit of an impossible equitable utopia.