Actually good rich public school district not having gifted program is a feature not a bug. If you have money and kid in 70-95% IQ percentile (typical for upper middle class) you can buy a house in Palo Alto, Short Hill or other rich suburb, send kid to school and not worry about gifted tests, school selection, lottery. Your kid will be fine with motivated students, etc. There will be dumb kids but overall class mix is really good (bottom 25% kid in Palo Alto is 80% percentile nationally).
The moment you introduce gifted program magic disappears and all “dumb” kids are in non gifted program with ambitious parents worrying about tests, everyone prepping for tests for 5 year old kids, etc.
District like Redwood City has much broader range of kids (from working class to rich techies) and gifted program is the only way to accommodate the range of abilities. In many districts gifted programs are very comparable to regular programs in good schools districts and is veiled attempt to keep white parents send kids to otherwise failing school.
It's not just about having a gifted program. They could do a great job accommodating these kids without a formal program, just by assessing kids and providing appropriately challenging curriculum. They just choose not to. They don't want to assess kids because they don't want to know what their true reading/math levels actually are.
And the 'common wisdom' that was passed to me by many other parents and district leaders is that advanced kids should maybe go to private schools. This is not the sign of a district that embraces a student body that skews advanced.
The moment you introduce gifted program magic disappears and all “dumb” kids are in non gifted program with ambitious parents worrying about tests, everyone prepping for tests for 5 year old kids, etc.
District like Redwood City has much broader range of kids (from working class to rich techies) and gifted program is the only way to accommodate the range of abilities. In many districts gifted programs are very comparable to regular programs in good schools districts and is veiled attempt to keep white parents send kids to otherwise failing school.