ABSTRACT
One of the most powerful of educational concepts during the last few decades has been that of the least restrictive environment (LRE). The call to apply the LRE concepts to the education of gifted students should ring alarm bells, especially for those educators who have specialized in the educational adaptations for such students. The call for more extensive LRE, often assumed to mean "mainstreaming" for gifted students, then can be seen as an argument for preventing such students being placed in special programs that might increase the educational gap between the mainstream students and these gifted students. A sample of 871 academically gifted students in elementary through secondary level was asked to respond to the question as to whether they were being challenged by their classes in various subject fields. Gifted students are separated for instruction based upon their past knowledge, their ability to learn quickly and their ability to think in-depth on issues that other students only vaguely comprehend.
