Innately gifted kids, hothoused kids, those with high potential from impoverished backgrounds would all benefit. Moving the ceiling up helps all kids, as hard workers in the middle may see that there is something to strive for when the ceiling is lifted.
Well, maybe not.
CB's own data from 2013 shows that over 40% of the members of the high school class of 2013 who failed to earn a 1550+ score on the SAT (about 60% of test takers earned those scores)
had taken Honors/AP coursework.Hmmm... so ~24% of test taking, presumably "college-bound" high school students got pretty much no discernable benefit from "advanced coursework" which was available to them.
Just putting butts in seats isn't really helping anyone if the heads attached don't have reasonable fit with the environment. It also doesn't benefit those who DO belong in that environment for instructional time to be wasted on the 1 in 4 who shouldn't really be there.
