It seems to me that the solution ought to be to remove caps on the number of students who can qualify, and stick with age.
My theory about restricting numbers (both for in-school gifted programs and programs such as CTY) is that part of the draw is that it's an exclusive club. I think a far more equitable system would be to allow anyone who is interested to attend and then
not lower standards.
I have a recent master's degree in gifted education. I went into the program with a strong bias toward self-contained gifted education and came out having decided that the vast majority of gifted programs are elitist and unethical.
