His feeling is that, if education focuses on bringing the lower and avg bunch of kids up, that all kids will benefit b/c a rising tide floats all boats. As a financial analogy, he mentioned how providing tax cuts and services to those who are already wealthy only serves to increase the disparity of resources. However, if lower income folks are provided tax cuts, etc. it was of benefit to everyone in terms of not having pockets of crime and low income.
I don't think the financial analogy works. The wealthy already have the resources they require, the gifted child does not.
What if you take his analogy and morph it into a sports analogy. All kids should be taught to play football in the same way, with the same resources. Those who are talented at football need no access to higher-level training because they're already good at the sport. The goal should be to make everyone good at the game. This way, everyone will be on an even playing field. All kids regardless of talent should be put in the same clinic, and go through all the same drills and exercises. Talented players should not be given access to any higher-level training. In fact, more time/resources should be given to those NOT good at the sport to raise the overall quality of the game played. (Of course, the Superbowl might not be as popular in this scenario! So, the advertisers may balk.)
Could we look at this as a waste of resources? Here's an off-the-cuff analogy. I'm typing as I think here, so feel free to take it or leave it. (Hopefully, I won't say anything that offends anyone....)
You have several different kinds of crops. Most can be developed using similar methods and provide value to society. There is one type of crop, however, that is more rare and requires different growing methods to thrive (not necessarily more expensive, just different). It has the potential to yield large benefits to the country -- types that are unlikely to be seen from the other crops. Would you ignore the one that needs something different to grow just because it's different and lose the benefits that could have resulted?
Nice topic. I'll be interested to see what others have to say.
