Thomas Jefferson stated, "Nothing is so unequal as the equal treatment of unequal people" (Fiedler, 2002). Yet, with the current trends in education, all students are placed in the same educational setting, regardless of their individual needs. Educational trends are leading all students to be placed in one mixed-ability classroom, and specialized classrooms are viewed as a form of discrimination. The disparities between exceptional students' rights and special needs students' rights are astonishing. Consider for example, in 1993, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley reported that only 2 cents of every $100 spent on pre-collegiate education in 1990 went to gifted programs. And the 1996 federal budget allocated $3 million for gifted education. We spend far more on education for children with disabilities than on children with gifts (Winner, 1996). Gifted children are usually bored and unengaged in school and therefore not reaching their potential (Winner, 1996). With the current trends to provide heterogeneous classrooms for all students educators are failing to meet the academic needs of the gifted children.
Ability grouping has a long history that began as early as the 1960s (Sharpes, 1999). …
