Is this just a failure in our school system?

Partially. Being gifted is special needs education. And the average K-12 in the US is not equipped to provide that for that special need, especially in a post No Child Left Behind era.

A lot of adults conflate giftedness with maturity and expect the kid to act like an adult, combined with the pressure to perform and an identity built around being gifted...it fucks with development.

There is a reason why depression and suicide in adults can be correlated with formerly gifted children.

	▲	alex43578 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not only are they not equipped to provide for gifted students, they're scarcely equipped to educate basic students to the already-low bar of grade-level expectations. Depending on the year and test, four in ten struggle with basic reading or basic math. That's not even the pressure of high expectations, but just the pathetic state of US culture around educational attainment, expected behaviors, etc.