When public school is too easy for gifted children, some affluent parents will enroll them in private school or supplement their educations with programs such as Art of Problem Solving or Russian School of Math. Watering down programs for high-IQ kids can thus increase inequality of opportunity, since many parents cannot or will not spend thousands of dollars on private programs.
Agreed.
Over the years, there have also been articles, forum threads, and posts stating that parents who could afford it (albeit for many, with struggle and sacrifice) were not just investing in out-of-school enrichment programs and opportunities for their children... but were leaving government schools for private/independent, parochial, and/or homeschool.
A brain-drain from government schools.
Not just the affluent, but all who realize that the price of education (outside the government system) is dwarfed by the price of their child's lost potential, frustration, lack of affirmation/validation, dearth of appropriate academic challenge and intellectual peers... forming patterns of underachievement during his/her formative years (in the government education system).
