So how does it work, logistically, to give different kids totally different curricula in the same classroom? It seems that mathematically, increasing the number of different curricula in one classroom must proportionately decrease the amount of actual instructional time that each child or group of children gets, and your comment about small-group instruction and guided independent study seems to confirm that.
What about kids who need to be explicitly instructed by a teacher in order to learn, or who can't work in groups? No kid on the autism spectrum will do well with an approach that is heavy on small-group learning without the teacher always there. I lean towards believing in instructing autistic kids separately anyway, because they're so universally bullied in regular classes, but I don't buy that even every neurotypical (or undiagnosed) kid is going to do well with an approach that involves little actual instruction from the teacher. Furthermore, how is a setting that focuses on group work and independent study "high-support"? The decreased amount of teacher instruction of each student seems to imply less support, not more, than in a standard classroom setting.
It also doesn't make sense to say that all students are capable of the same level of success. Some kids are smarter than others. That's just how it is. Even if most of the less intelligent kids, with more support, could do what the smart kids do now, that suggests that the smart kids could do even more with adequate support. If you equalize achievement levels by helping the less smart kids more than the smart ones, you penalize the smarter kids by not giving them enough support to let them achieve as highly as their ability would allow.
no subject
What about kids who need to be explicitly instructed by a teacher in order to learn, or who can't work in groups? No kid on the autism spectrum will do well with an approach that is heavy on small-group learning without the teacher always there. I lean towards believing in instructing autistic kids separately anyway, because they're so universally bullied in regular classes, but I don't buy that even every neurotypical (or undiagnosed) kid is going to do well with an approach that involves little actual instruction from the teacher. Furthermore, how is a setting that focuses on group work and independent study "high-support"? The decreased amount of teacher instruction of each student seems to imply less support, not more, than in a standard classroom setting.
It also doesn't make sense to say that all students are capable of the same level of success. Some kids are smarter than others. That's just how it is. Even if most of the less intelligent kids, with more support, could do what the smart kids do now, that suggests that the smart kids could do even more with adequate support. If you equalize achievement levels by helping the less smart kids more than the smart ones, you penalize the smarter kids by not giving them enough support to let them achieve as highly as their ability would allow.