Someone asked me about this and I realized I should provide a summary of how eveything ended up:
In the end I gave up. Nobody from the Gates Foundation responded to any of my emails and the school principal changed her story several times. At our final meeting she said they would NEVER allow an outside organization to dictate placement.
She also said they gave my son a test on the fourth grade material and his score did not qualify him to be accelerated (I think he got an 80 or 85%). We were not informed that he was being tested for placement prior to being told he had not qualified.
The catch is that the test was administered by the Gates study! The principal didn't even seem capable of grasping that this WAS allowing an outside organization to dictate placement. She even admited she had never seen the test and didn't know what was on it. She also couldn't tell me what the range of scores in my son's class was.
My son is taking an EPGY course online.
I don't think our difficulties were caused by the Gates study, but the school definitely used the study an an excuse to not deal with us and nobody at the Gates Foundation stepped up to prevent it. And they certainly did not do an adequate job of communicating the study parameters to school personnel or parents. Very disturbing situation.
As I mentioned previously, the academic in charge of the study DID respond to an email I sent to him at the university he is affiliated with. But after our final conversation with the principal I didn't think it was worth anyone's time to pursue it further.
