> I've studied at Community Colleges, State Schools, and Ivies/Ivy Adjacent programs, and the curriculum is largely comparable.

I'm very happy with the education system of the US colleges too. I was specifically talking about trainings in high school.

> The un-PC truth is this comes down to parenting. If parents don't help guide or motivate their kids, most kids will stagnate.

At least this was not true in my personal experience. My parents gave me love and support, but they gave me zero relevant guidance on how to study. Funny that my parents told me that "just make sure you understand your textbook and can solve all the problems on it, and you will excel" because that was their experience in college. Yet they had no idea that we had no problem understanding textbooks, and questions we got from our teachers were miles deeper than our textbook. Merely following textbook will guarantee failure, except for the truly talented (this is very different from the US textbooks. Books like CLRS and Jackson's Electrodynamics are famous for tough exercises and deep discussions, but high-school textbooks, at least in my country, cover only the basics).

> There's no point truly optimizing for "gifted" students - the truly gifted will be able to succeed in any environment.

I guess it depends on what we mean by "gifted". If you are talking about gifted as in those who push themselves, who took initiative to find resources, who are so competitive or passionate that constantly seek challenges, then yeah, I are truly gifted and will stand out.

On the other hand, if you are talking about those who are like me, then I doubt we don't need to push them in high school. I got multiple wakeup calls because my teachers gave us challenging problem sets, so I realized that I didn't really learn as well as I thought.