...there is not a "top" or a "bottom" or a "better" or a "worse" here.
Teachers can reasonably claim that they have too many students to be able to provide extra teaching on new topics to one or two gifted kids. Fair enough. But they could send these kids to another grade for subject acceleration or whole-grade accelerate them, but many schools flatly refuse to do this.
Exactly. Administrators in the district claim that teachers differentiate and it's a value in the district. But teachers don't differentiate and claim it's impossible. Meanwhile the administrators make it extremely difficult or outright ban acceleration, saying it's not needed because there is differentiation in the classroom. They are deluding themselves. If a kid is lucky enough to have a gifted teacher who is able and willing, then there may be some degree of differentiation. But otherwise, tough luck.
