The assumption really DOES seem to be that if we're doing this all correctly, then EVERY child will be a high achiever.
Not in our school district - I think they'd be ecstatic if every student learned how to read and do basic arithmetic. We're nowhere close to that right now.
And there is some good evidence that having a range of achievement levels in a class can benefit those at the lower end. That said, however, our district has extrapolated that evidence to dogmatic extreme by putting the *full* range of achievement levels in *every* classroom. There are many problems with this strategy, and the HG students suffer from it the most. I think the optimum lies somewhere in between this approach and full-on *tracking*. Grouping is just now being reintroduced in our district but there is a lot of pushback in the schools, from teachers AND parents....
