And.... most don't start differentiating instruction (start tracking) students at 6-7 yrs old. Even in countries with cast systems at least attempt to give children at least a few years in school before deciding who might be best suited for professional education and who goes into the voc-tech track.

The thing I dislike about my district is that they do their selection and tracking behind the scene. Unless you are tuned and start asking questions, you would never know that your child was in a low track. Your kids come home with A's and B's, great looking report cards, you think they were doing well and getting prepared to go to college. Then later find out when you get the child's state test back that they are actually only proficient or worse or when they apply to college they have to take some remedial math course because the basic course they had in high school doesn't count.

When I asked the school principal to outline how children's academic abilities were being measured in 2-5 grades I was appalled. First he didn't really know, then he gave me the criteria used to rank the kids, but he couldn't tell me where my child fell after being ranked. Most of the measures disclosed had major biases, were not assess for validity or reliability... any one who ever took just one research methods course would have been like...this is total BS. To me if you are going to have gifted programs and track student you had better have good non-bias measures to assess students and each year ALL students data should be collected and re-ranked by blinded evaluators. This way everyone get a fair chance to receive the best opportunities they qualify for.

My point here is if you are going to differentiate instruction, provide enrichment/remediation etc. then you need to be fair and mindful of how these services are provided. Most of these procedures are not fair and not well thought out and in IMO can have harmful side-effects.