I also question your idea that gifted 'should' in any way result in 'able to make more money.' I think that giftedness is a way of interacting with the world, and for some highly or profoundly gifted folks, that way makes them less likely to find their way to a high paying job.
As a PG public school teacher, I would, of course, have to agree with you! Salary, GPA, GRE scores, golf handicaps, fair market value of home and/or stock portfolio are all numerical measures of success for some people that, I, personally reject. Yet, I know few people who would look at me in my little one bedroom attached rental unit, compare me to my sister and her houses, and conclude that I was more successful, and that it must be because I have a higher IQ!
We are not just concerned with two separate topics here, we are concerned with multiple separate topics. It is my opinion that, if you are going to pull highly capable students out of the general ed classroom for instruction that is more in line with their abilities, the students with high cognitive ability and the students with above average ability and task commitment will benefit from being in each other's presence. In many cases, this will be more beneficial than either instructing the students of high ability in very small groups (perhaps a group of one) or leaving them in a heterogenous group for all of their classes.
While I am dreaming of an array of services, such an array would, of course, include both acceleration and enrichment, so that some students would be in classes that did not match their calendar age. I have a fantasy, for example, about a three-year middle school, where students could elect to compact and accelerate a couple of core classes a year, and finish middle school in two years, with a small cohort of capable and motivated students. If they decided they did not want to accelerate any more after the first, second or third semester, they could step out of the program and fill in their schedule with electives.
Other classes could be set up as a tutorial, where students could spend most of the class in the library or computer lab, working on a project that interests them, and checking in with a teacher once a week.
{sigh} Maybe I need to start a new thread: Fantasy Gifted Programs.
