I see a lot of similarities to British trends in the late 19th century with the'public school' (posh/aristocrat) vs state-run (prole/serf) system. By definition, the aristocratic class was considered to be universally gifted, and the serf class was considered to be universally inferior, so having a 'gifted program' in the school for the proles risked the danger of breaking class lines.

However, the collapse of the British Empire was due in large part to greed and incompetent management (not that Empires are all that desirable) but the 20th century history of technological development in Britain isn't all that great. In contrast, looking at the biographies of many leading American scientists and entrepreneurs of the 20th century reveals that a great many of them came from places like impoverished MidWest farming communities and were only able to move on to higher academics, research centers, etc. because of their access to 'advanced learning programs' in their local areas.

If the argument is that bias exists in who gets into advanced/gifted programs in the K-12 public schools because there is a limited number of slots, the solution is obviously to expand the number of slots, not to eliminate the programs altogether.