The practical issue which so many people don't seem to want to acknowledge is that students are different. I have taught and there are some students that simply lack either the intelligence, discipline, interest, or some other aspect that makes it literally impossible for them to ever receive anything beyond a basic education. You could give them 10 on 1 specialized instruction from the the most competent/interesting/engaging teachers and tutors imaginable, and they're still just not going to excel.

And then on the other end of the spectrum there are kids who will proactively read, on their own, through e.g. their math textbook, understand everything with no difficulty, and basically get nothing academic out of their education (beyond that which they'd get from simply having the books) unless one engages in extreme 'differentiation' which is an educational buzzword that is basically just glorified in-class 'filtering' that imposes a massive workload on teachers, creates inequity within the classroom itself, and is really just quite dysfunctional.

And so the typical results of trying to give an advanced education to everyone is that you end up pulling the top down, rather than lifting the bottom up. This is even more true because the bottom is also often disproportionately filled with students who have extreme behavioral problems often alongside families who just don't particularly care about their education, while the top is rarely disruptive except for the smart-ass type who's generally just trying to get some giggles rather than being actively hostile.

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I think seeing things as a teacher makes you view things radically different than you do as a student. You're probably one of those overachiever types given your comment, and perhaps you feel that you worked a bit harder, maybe were a bit interested in the material then your peers or whatever. But I can assure you - that's generally not it. There are kids that try hard, even some that get things like multiple in-home tutors, and they still just can't excel no matter how hard their parents, or they, try.

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Edit: Just found this [1] interesting Wiki page. You can see the list of countries, by gold medals in the last 10 Olympiads. In order of medals: USA, South Korea, Thailand, Russia, Vietnam, UK, Iran, Canada, Singapore, China.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_medal_cou...

People talk about intelligence a lot, but the sheer difference in interest is just as big, if not a bigger factor.

In an average class, you get most kids - who are mostly content to be there. And then you get the outliers. There's that one kid who appears to be suffering something just short of physical pain whenever he's in class learning something. Then there's the kid who has already read all his textbooks in the first week, for fun, and even retained a lot of it, because he was engaged with the material.

They may have the same exact intelligence, but the outcomes could not be more different.

That's because your premise is contingent on a pragmatic framing, whereas these issues depend on science. If the science says intellectual aptitude is a function of nature and nurture then we as society ought to find ways to help our next generations flourish. That does not mean allocating 10 teachers to one child as you had so strongly put it.

People are different but the demands of 99% of actual jobs are far below that those natural differences won't matter as opposed to standardized training.

And it's a good thing that it's like that, because we don't want our society to be reliant on a few Rockstars. As Napoleon stated, an individual Mamluk far exceeded an individual Frenchman, but 1000 Frenchman could always defeat 1000 Mamluks.

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