jack'smom - They put the high achievers in with the low achievers because studies have shown it really helps the low achievers. The fact that it's probably damaging the high achievers is apparently not of much importance. They do the same thing at my son's school - spread out the lowest-scoring kids and the highest-scoring kids across all the classes. One of the teachers had told me before 1st that they were pushing to change this and put the top 25% in one class, and the bottom 25% in another and then split the middle into the two other classes, but they were overruled by the administration. I'm sure CA has the same situation as TX where improving failing scores to passing ones = $$ for the school.
