RPM - your DS is amazing! He is very cute. It's very sad he felt he couldn't do guitar for a while. I'm glad he came back to it. My DS7 would LOVE to learn guitar.
On tracking, that would never work at our school. Any differentiating they do has to be done very quietly. There is such an involved parent base at our school, every parent would come in demanding that every kid be placed in the highest class. Over 40% of the kids are IDed as gifted. But the vast majority of this really are working at grade level. When I start talking about DS when someone mentions their child being GT or needing more at school, their eyes generally glaze over like they have no idea what I'm talking about.
As someone who was probably MG-HG but an extreme underachiever in elementary school just to survive, I'm sure I would have never been appropriately placed if placement was based solely on achievement. I liked Kriston's comments on ability placement.
But it sounds like it might work to your benefit RPM! You'll have to let us know how it goes.
