Which just goes to show that some sort of ability grouping is required. The 85 percentile kids probably really do need more than they get in a class aimed at the bottom half. But they don't need the same as the 99+ percentile.
This is the issue in my area. At the end of 2nd grade, about 20% of my DS's grade was IDed as gifted (there were about 20 kids total) for the 3rd grade. I don't live in an affluent, well educated area, but many of the kids who statistically would not be considered gifted - (ie would not be 130 or more (our state says top 98th percentile)are identified for the gifted program because they see putting them with the other 80% as a diservice to them. The interesting thing about the situation was they did a cluster grouping model for the gifted program but they took those 20 kids that they had over identified and put them in 3 different classrooms. We left that school before 3rd grade.
