[after dark]

Because you are not limiting the choices of the "dullards", the "retards" and the just plain normal, I am not offended by your position ,however the examples listed by another poster disprove the assumption that genius is as simple as a Mensa membership card.

[GSlob]

Re-read the "Bell Curve". If anyone were to give Einstein a contemporary IQ test around 1890, there are good chances he would come as significantly above average. There was no testing then, and the society became much better at identifying high IQ pupils now. I simply consider the gifted group too important to give them anything but the best. If you read my other comments on this thread, you might have noticed that I kept referring to one particular [foreign] example of "the best". The interesting part of that particular school's history was that it started as a "cooperative homeschooling" project by a group of university professors. Because of other [social] conditions they had to open it to the outsiders - and did so, by selectively admitting schoolchildren on the basis of IQ riddles tests. The results were startling. I have not yet come across a better program for the gifted, even by hearsay. If there is a better one - by all means, let's implement that.