This is the result of outcome-based education. In traditional education, the only tiers are grade levels.

The solution is simple: take the material that was being taught in the so-called "gifted" class, and make that the standard curriculum for the entire grade level. If some students have trouble learning the more advanced material, you just give them lower grades. Trying to divide students up into different classes with varying degrees of difficulty based on the students' alleged ability is just a bad idea. Students should be molded to fit the curriculum, not the other way around.

Frankly, I don't think I like the notion of a school board deciding how smart a child is based on some standardized test, and having that determine the quality of education that child receives for their entire school career. This is freaking kindergarten for crying out loud. Deciding how smart a child is at such a young age is a horrible thing to do.

The proper way to deal with students of varying ability is to move the fast learners forward a grade, and hold the slow ones back. All this bullcrap about multiple degrees of difficulty within the same grade level just bogs the whole system down, raises costs, and diminshes the quality of everyone's education. Not to mention the whole issue with trapping vast swaths of children into educational paths where they are presented with dumbed down information because some standardized test they took in kindergarten said they were stupider than normal.

No, the curriculum for each grade level needs to be standardized at the highest reasonable difficulty for that age group, and then everyone pushed to achieve the highest standard possible. None of this idiotic coddling of multiple ability levels. That doesn't help anyone.

Sorry if I went off on a bit of a rant there, eskslo. I have nothing against you, I just think it's counter-productive and cruel for school boards to decide how smart a child is before they're ever given a chance. Plus having multiple difficulty levels within each grade raises costs because then you have to have more teachers.

I can understand why you might think having special classes for aleged "gifted" students would be a good idea, but it's really not. Every student needs to be pushed to excel at the highest level possible, not just some of the students.