Exactly, Tallulah. The result is such myopic rigidity that the schools really DO NOT work for the HG+ kids in them. Which can be, as you note, a fairly sizeable percentage of the kids.
Our town's district ID's a full 30% as "gifted." I don't
know that it's wrong, since the major employers in town are a fortune 25 hi-tech company, a regional medical complex, and a state flagship uni. So yeah, there ARE a lot of ideally bright and probably MG kids in town. No question.
But what gets aimed at that group doesn't suffice for the kids who are actually EG or PG, and it's all the more maddening to listen to the administrators, teachers, and school board patting themselves on the back for doing such a bang-up job of it all
when you ask them questions ABOUT that minority group of students.It's as though it doesn't compute, your question-- as though you couldn't POSSIBLY have actually asked it, because
you don't understand how Super Awesome their program is. 
