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[This is an entry to the\\xa0Adversarial Collaboration Contest\\xa0by TracingWoodgrains and Michael Pershan (a k-12 math teacher), on advanced students in the education system]

\\u201cWhat do America\\u2019s brightest students hear? Every year, across the nation, students who should be moved ahead at their natural pace of learning are told to stay put. Thousands of students are told to lower their expectations, and put their dreams on hold. Whatever they want to do, their teachers say, it can wait.\\u201d\\xa0\\u2013\\xa0A Nation Deceived, p.3

\\u201cThere is an apparent preference among donors for studying the needs and supporting the welfare of the weak, the vicious, and the incompetent, and a negative disregard of the highly intelligent, leaving them to \\u201cshift for themselves.\\u201d\\xa0Hollingworth, 1926

1. Eager to Learn and Underachieving

Pretend you\\u2019re a teacher. With 25 students, who gets your attention during class?

There\\u2019s the kid who ask for it, whose hand is constantly up. There\\u2019s also the quiet kid in the corner who never says a\\xa0word, but has been lost in math since October, who will fail if you don\\u2019t do something. There\\u2019s the student in the middle of the pack, flowing along. Finally, there\\u2019s the kid who finishes everything quickly. She\\u2019s looking around and wondering,\\xa0what am I supposed to do now?

In a\\xa0survey\\xa0of teachers from 2008, just 23% reported that advanced students were a top priority for them, while 63% reported giving struggling students in their classes the most attention. A\\xa02005 study\\xa0found the same trend in middle schools, where struggling students receive the bulk of instructional modification and special arrangements. This was true even while 73% agreed that advanced students were too often bored and under-challenged in school. While teachers, it seems, are sympathetic to the smart bored kid, that\\u2019s just not a priority for them.