This forces a zero sum frame that is not appropriate. It doesn’t cost anything to let a student (or 5) do math time with a class that’s a grade ahead. And if th

This forces a zero sum frame that is not appropriate. It doesn’t cost anything to let a student (or 5) do math time with a class that’s a grade ahead. And if there are enough of them, it doesn’t cost anything to clump the kids by ability level when setting up the classes. The reason this doesn’t happen, in my experience, is teacher unions (and, to some extent, the political leanings of administrators). Every year, my kids’ school asks us about our kids and what would be good for them to have in terms of a teacher for the next year. This makes parents think they will be placed in a class with a teacher who would be well-suited for them. But this isn’t what happens at all! The classes are put together using a balancing approach, to make all the classes “equal” in terms of easy students, trouble students, etc. Only then are the classes assigned to teachers, without regard to what the individual students need. The randomization and balancing is done so that no teacher gets all the best behaved or worst behaved kids. The system is all about the teachers, not the students. For this reason, our school won’t allow gifted classes to exist, since that would give certain teachers “easier” kids than others. Of course, they also don’t want to have an advanced class with Asian and white kids, but few black and Hispanic kids, from both a political and optics perspective. But the point is, they could easily do this at no additional cost if they wanted to. And it would allow all students to learn more effectively, since their teacher would be more tightly focused on kids at a certain level.