I have one child that has attended the base school and is now in high school, and another child that has been in the elementary and middle school GT Center (and is now in 7th grade).  Based on my experience in seeing both programs, I am strongly in favor of retaining the GT Centers as they exist.

 I believe that the GT Center serves a vital role as a place that students can go and learn with other students like themselves.  It provides a peer group where students can be who they are and not the "outcast nerds" that they might be in the base school.  Generally, at the base school, there are not enough students to make this same kind of peer group and that is the reason that the GT kids feel that they don't fit in.  In contrast, at the GT Center these kids feel good about who they are, the depth of information taught is interesting to them, and they feed off each other both in class and socially.  When my son went to the GT Center, for the first time he became interested in school; I cannot even describe in words what a difference it made to his motivation and his happiness.  He was a completely different person, working harder and making better grades.  For the first time, he had teachers that really liked him and understood him, and he came home talking about the things he was learning at school.   At the base school, he was falling through the cracks, not being challenged despite being in every "pull out" offered, and I strongly believe that he would have fallen through the cracks in a big way had he not gone to the Center. 

There are people who believe that the Centers should be eliminated and honors classes offered instead.  I disagree with this completely.   In my experience the honors classes have become less demanding as they are opened up to virtually anybody that wants to take them.  My daughter took all honors classes in middle school.  There is no comparison between the level of her classes and the level of the classes offered at the GT Center.  It is not even close.  Unless the level of the honors classes changes drastically, they are no substitute for what is offered at the Center.  Moreover, as discussed above, without a program, there is no consistent peer group, and the importance of this cannot be overstated.

I do believe, however, that in going through this process of evaluating the GT Centers, it would be wise to review the direction of the honors program at the base schools.  I believe that less people at the base schools would be dissatisfied with the GT program if their children at the base schools were obtaining a higher quality education.  While I can see benefits of expanding the honors program at the base school and making these classes available to more students, my experience is that this policy is diluting the quality of the honors program.  At my daughter's school, the honors classes did not seem very demanding.  I believe that more of what is being offered at the GT Centers should be infused into the honors classes.  There is no doubt that most of the students that should be in honors classes can do the work, and there is no reason that the gap between GT and honors should be so great.