the unfairness criticism is nonsense. it's just politics. and it doesn't even apply here because the existence of different school types would be unfair as well. splitting kids up by ability is not unfair. forcing them in different schools however is. because switching schools takes a lot of effort and it gets harder the older you get simply because the curriculum diverges to much. so even if i am bored in a lower tier school, i could not catch up to a higher tier one. for most kids the moment the school tier is chosen after grade 4, the kid is stuck in that tier, no matter how able the kid turns out to be.

merging school types is not about treating everyone the same, but it is about acknowledging that kids develop and you can't evaluate the ability of a child based on their performance at age 9.

as i said, i would not have made it in a tiered system because i would have been stuck in the lowest tier. my parents were to busy to argue with each other to even care and my performance suffered because of them.

those are circumstances a tiered system can't handle. a merged system that can deal with children at all levels however can, and that made the difference for me. that has nothing to do with treating all kids the same. on the contrary, it has everything to do with treating kids individually and not stuffing them in boxes like a tiered system does.

as for a perfect system, montessori gets pretty close. three years of age are grouped together in one class. that alone require that the kids in that class are not all treated the same. it allows all kids to learn at their own pace, so younger, faster kids can easily catch up to older kids and work with them or be given extra activities without disturbing other kids in the same class learning something else