This (opinion) article seems to be making the claim that separating out all of the top kids makes the group not selected perform worse. (The measurement of "ac

This (opinion) article seems to be making the claim that separating out all of the top kids makes the group not selected perform worse. (The measurement of "achievement" used is percentage of students failing a rudimentary algebra class and percentage of students enrolling in an advanced mathematics class) This seems uncontroversial -- the smart kids will benefit the rest by their presence, and being labelled as not-smart probably doesn't help achievement very much. But the purpose of separating out the really gifted kids was never for the benefit of the folks that couldn't cut it -- it was for the benefit of the gifted kids so that they could actually achieve at the level of their ability. It seems to me quite uncontroversial that removing all of the disruptive kids and eliminating all of the remedial study time would aid students that are both interested and able to achieve.