When I was playing a lot of tennis, I wanted to play with people better than me, it challenged me and made me a better player...
If a child of 130 IQ gets one of those spots and gets to go to school with kids 140-160, he/she may get reallly motivated, expand their own IQ and thinking skils and have a great outcome.
But don't those great tennis players have the right to want to play with equally great tennis players at least some of the time and not serve as the one who mentors or motivates the good but not great players? Likewise, no one would argue that a 98th percentile child doesn't belong in a gifted class, but don't those kids with IQs in the 140-160 range have a right to have the rest of the group be mostly similarly able rather than mostly 130 with a lot of prepping?
I would view it the same as parents of kids with 110 IQs wanting them into the 130 grouping so they can be stretched. What, then, happens for those few kids who really are at 130 if most of the class isn't -- it becomes a non-GT class in our experience. I recall having friends in high school whose parents stated that they liked them hanging out with me b/c I expanded their vocabulary. It was flattering, but it probably wouldn't be where you'd want to hang out all day if you were expecting to work with peers on assignments for instance. I'm not one of those 140-160 people FWIW.
