...They lump them all in a category and never consider the LOG and how a moderately gifted child is apples to oranges to a highly gifted to child; and apples to cars for a profoundly gifted child.
This is so true. My dd, who isn't profoundly gifted (PG), is still not in her element when placed with other gifted kids of similar age. For instance, she is currently taking part in a STEM institute for gifted middle schoolers (6th-9th). She is 11.5 and will be an 8th grader in the fall, so she is in the middle of the age and grade grouping presumably. She has been somewhat unhappy with the level of the instruction and expectations and came home yesterday complaining how they aren't teaching her anything she doesn't already know.
I've really had to encourage her to think outside of the box and come up with a project on her own rather than following the suggested formatting for the projects they are doing b/c she wouldn't get anything out of the expected project and she really does want to learn something new not just create an impressive end project from material she has known for years.
She went in today with her own materials including a population survey of tagged and un-tagged manatees from the DOW in FL and a college textbook on sirinean anatomy. She's going to do some research on the brains of manatees or factors that correlate with successful release of rehabilitated manatees. (It's an oceanography focused STEM class.) I believe that the intended research projects were more along the lines of "what causes manatee mortality," or "what do Giant Pacific Octopus eat?"
If you have a local university there ... think of the great opportunity he would have with students there: You could always hire a tutor from the university.
I'm seriously begining to consider this for dd11 myself. Especially in an area of deep interest for a HG+ child (like marine mammology for my dd), the child is likely to surpass high school level material quite early and may do much better with college courses. Like I said, my dd isn't Doogie Howser. She's obviously very bright to most people who interact with her, but I never would think that she should start college at 11. I think that it is common misperception that only really odd, out there kids are taking college course this early when it may actually be a fit for many HG kids with a real drive and interest in specialized fields.
