Following up on Wren's comment from the companion thread:
It would be wonderful if you staff a whole school with your requirements, but alas, mostly you get a mixed bag.
Most certainly. Consequently, the outcomes are mixed as well. For below-grade-level students, they have generally been better than not, I suspect because the philosophical underpinnings of raising their performance (academically and socially) to approach that of NT age-peers are much more in alignment with the values of decision-makers in education (possibly with some relevance to indigo's post above and it's companion thread). Which, in turn, might have some connection to the composition of decision-making organizations, which, like many of the private schools referenced in the prior thread, tends to be tilted toward relatively homogeneously bright-average products of the conventional educational system. Nothing wrong with their membership intrinsically, of course, but it's no surprise that people tend to understand best the needs of those most like themselves, and the GT population is not well-represented among educational planners. (The other end of the spectrum is not either, but does have better legal protections, and often advocates at the table.)
It's a whole lot easier to envision reaching down to bring someone up to one's own level, than to visualize supporting someone up beyond one's own level. Even with the best of intentions.
I will note, though, with regard to Wren's DC's school, that having the resources on-call as a consult is very different from having instructional specialists teaching in the classroom alongside the content specialists. The latter has less the aura of friendly experts, and more the feeling of collegiality. Not to mention day-to-day real-time modeling of a variety of instructional practices, which often ends up benefiting not only the students for whom they are a necessity, but the other students as well.
