About the test for entry:

I don't think they test everyone. They tested me because my teacher saw me reading books all the time, so in other words, they test those they have hunches about. It was just a standard IQ test. The following year, my mother took me to the local university to have a battery of tests taken, and I remember talking to a child psychologist. My mother kept the paperwork from those tests, and they gave a *much* more accurate picture of what my strengths and weaknesses were. It's too bad the public school system can't assess every student as thoroughly. The budget being what it is, students get the cookie-cutter IQ test, and slapped with a label. Oh well...

My friend Walter was labeled gifted when he was a kid, and they put him in a public school that was made up entirely of other students labeled as above average. He probably had the ideal environment---there was no hierarchy of smart-and-dumb, and the staff was specially trained and equipped to teach those students. That was in the 80's in Memphis. He told me that the school has since been shut down.

--Jez"I think his school was called Hogwart's"zika