A talented student remains in a classroom with diverse educational abilities. But clustering assures that there exists a sufficient nucleus of highly capable students to make it worthwhile for the teacher to provide for and meet special needs. When teachers try to meet the diverse learning needs of all students, it becomes extremely difficult to provide adequately for everyone. When a teacher has a cluster of several talented students, taking the time to make appropriate provisions for them seems more realistic. Furthermore, gifted students can better understand and accept their learning differences if there are others just like them in the class.
All classrooms can benefit from the clustering concept, even non-cluster classrooms.
Recent research supports this assertion. First, all classrooms retain a broad spectrum of abilities. Remember that under the cluster approach we are advocating, students are assigned to a cluster because they are ready for a program of exceptional rigor. Not every student of high ability will want such a program, and non-cluster students in the other classrooms will have an enhanced opportunity to be the top of their class. Moreover, as cluster teachers learn to differentiate, the differentiation skills they learn will be disseminated to other teachers.