Differentiation is a tool for planning instruction. Like all tools, it can be applied elegantly or poorly. When used well, it benefits a very broad range of learners. When used less well, it is less effective. A key question, then, is how effective a school is in describing, monitoring and supporting quality implementation of differentiation. The question is as relevant to special services for advanced learners as it is for any other group. Is the primary goal a separate room for students with particular needs, or should our primary goal be high-quality learning experiences wherever a student is taught?

The range of students in schools indicates the need for a range of services. Since most students have always received most of their instruction in general education classrooms, it’s quite important that differentiation in that setting be robust. There are some very bright students whose academic needs are quite well addressed in some “regular” classrooms, some who require extended instruction in a specific subject, some whose need for challenge suggests specialized instruction in all content areas — perhaps even outside the student’s school. Effective differentiation would serve the student in each of those situations.

The critical variable in this debate, however, is not really differentiation vs. special classrooms for advanced learners. It’s the quality of content a nation is willing to support for all its students. In most classrooms across this country, teachers have spent the last decade — not by their own choice — trying to prepare students for an endless progression of tests that measure a student’s capacity to retain a staggering array of facts and to perform skills that have little meaning to them now or in the future.

There’s no doubt that our most advanced learners have lost ground during that time. I’d argue there’s ample evidence that most students have lost ground. The real question isn’t whether differentiation has a role in the education of highly able students. The real question is what kind of curriculum we believe as a nation will fuel the potential of all our young people.

Certainly our most advanced learners need better than the content they are now being served. An even larger issue for the nation is whether we are willing to assume that as long as we remove 3 percent or 5 percent or 15 percent of our students from low-level, factory-like classrooms, we’ve addressed the core problem that currently defines our national aspirations.