I'm pretty sure I've explained this before. I'll leave you to look back through the tabs, with one caveat: there is a difference between ranges of achievement for neurotypical, non-LD children, and ranges of achievement amongst those deemed to have special needs. I don't subscribe to the idea that children with autism don't need anything more than what can be provided for them in a mainstream differentiated classroom, and I never have. I've always acknowledged that there needed to be options available for those students, either in the form of an EA or in a special class placement. While many LDs can be accounted for in a regular class, they need extra support and some of them need a special class.

Can we take that part off the table and talk about what I'm really discussing, which is siphoning off the best and brightest - or those whose parents are most involved and worked with them the hardest to make them look like the best and brightest - while leaving the others to languish in sub-par programs? Because for every almost-gifted kid who wasn't challenged, I can point to two more who were believed to be of much lower intelligence and aptitude than they actually were. For example, a good friend of mine failed grade nine science and spent an awful lot of time in trouble at school. He's defending his PhD in biophysics this fall. Like pvenables, his parents were told that he was just not that good of a student, and I'm sure many of their teachers would be totally shocked to find out how well they've both done educationally and career-wise. But how many more get missed, streamed into the wrong stream in grade nine, lacking the foresight or parental support to dig themselves out later?

It is not penalizing smart kids to give every kid the same opportunity that they've already got, and the support to do what they're already doing. That's called equity.