I worked in GATE committee of our school district for a number of years. The term "Equal opportunity" sounds familiar. It was used quite often as a justification to scrap GATE program. Our school district used to have a standing alone GATE class in 4th and 5th grade (students above 95 percentile were identified and offered a slot in that class). "Equal opportunity" was used as a code word for something else, in our case, the personal conflict between the principal and the GATE coordinator.
I and other GATE parents fought long and hard to preserve the GATE program. The effort was not completely futile but only served to delay the demise of the program for a couple of years. At the end of it, I was so sick of the petty school politics I sent my daughters to other district. Many other parents followed. Now the GATE program in our district is only a shadow of what it once was. So sad.
