That is such a double edged sword.
I am all in favor of opportunities for all, and student chances not be compromised by parents SES level or other obstacles towards early achievement, but it can compromise the program.
Here, parents push hard to get even marginally qualified (or frankly, unqualified) kids into a high ability track which was originally designed for the top third of the age cohort.(and up to 50% of attrition until graduation was considered normal! most of that happening in the middle school grades).
Then they complain that the standards are too high and their kids have to work too hard.
If you gently suggest maybe the kid might be happier in a different track, the parent will either change the subject or moan that they would deny their kid opportunities. Not because they couldn't still enter a college prep program for high school, they can, but that one does demand a little more motivation and hard work on the part of the kid, as opposed to the parent banking on a combination of peer pressure and tutoring to try to keep the kid on r&r sick in middle school.
Now that entry levels have risen to 50% of the age cohort, the quota of kids with marginal qualifications has risen so high (because that is the way the bell urge works...) that parents are succeeding I dumbing down the curriculum. 50% attrition wouldn't fly any more, must be the fault of the school and the curriculum, right? The pace too fast, the content too much, the curriculum not hands on enough, blah blah blah, The fact that some kids NEED the pace, the content, the level of abstraction, falls totally by the wayside.
DH is still not happy with having DS9 enter the gifted middle school across the state line (which teaches the high ability track curriculum of that state, but with acceleration /compacting/telescoping/enrichment) since he feels that with entrance requirements having been abolished in the other state, the process of curriculum dumbing down might be even more advanced in that state that the one he teaches in.
Even if he starts in the gifted program (because it would be hard to have him enter at a later grade, and DS really rally wants to go) DH may be poised to have him switch out later.
We will see.
