How about grouping the GT students within a classroom? It costs no extra money, assuming there are enough students to fill a class--it uses the same number of teachers, classrooms, etc. as not grouping them--but it allows at least some course compacting or acceleration. Even if there are different LOGs in a room, differentiation is easier if you don't have the full spectrum of the Bell Curve all in one place.
I have long wondered why this isn't tried more often. Could it be that, simply by the numbers, there aren't enough kids who would qualify? For example, our neighborhood elementary school has about 500 kids, that's less than 100 kids per grade, so hypothetically only a few in each grade would fit in the 98%-or-above bracket - but I know so many people who send their kids to other schools (we have a lot of charters in our district) that I have to wonder whether there would have been more kids. And there are certainly plenty of other elementary schools in surrounding neighborhoods that if the kids from just a few were pooled it should easily make a classroom.
(I have a similar question about our district's full time gifted program, which takes place at a handful of the 30+ elementary schools - my understanding is that there is, or used to be, a significant waiting list, but I don't get why - why not just make another class - why does that cost more than keeping the kids in their regular classrooms).
