We live in an area where there are zones of high poverty, high crime rates, and generally educational outcomes around here are abysmally low for the whole population in general. So they try to make up for it by having a good gifted schooling system.
I think the problem some of you are having is that you are in more affluent and educated areas, and in such areas, true gifted education gets stifled.
This was DW's experience of growing up and attending the public schools of Elizabeth, NJ. There was just so much federal money floating around that anyone with a work ethic, an educationally supportive family environment and above average intelligence actually had much better labs and classes than many SDs in the state that had a much higher SES population.
