I tend to agree that "there must be a trade off between universality and rigor," and that "the US is not in the position to be caviler about the education of it's best performing students". But that's only if I believe the nightly news.
I do agree it's not fair if certain neighborhoods achieve at different rates than others, but the obvious answer is to quit treating kids like statistics and give them the education the need at the present time.

Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar