don’t know how we muddled through without all the specialness training ; ) We had 6 tracks in jr high, 1 through 6 with 1 being the smartest kids. i guess that was special enough.
Since public schools are required to cater to the lowest common denominator, it makes sense to screen out the bright kids who would be bored stiff and not challenged at all in a basic curriculum. Some of the G&T kids really are but I believe most of them are hard-working type As. That’s been my experience working with them.
They used a similar system in NYC grade schools, but when I was in 5th grade, they decided there was a stigma involved, so they assigned class numbers randomly. Since practically all of the "smart" kids had been in 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, and 4-1 together, sticking them (okay, sticking "us") in class 5-3, while putting the future democrats who had previously been in 1-6, 2-6, 3-6, and 4-6 into 5-1 really didn't fool anybody. An early attempt at political correctness, way back in 1958.