Regardless of the usefulness of sports in schools (and I do believe they are useful), you point out that they are "often limited in participation by elitism" much as I suppose the critics of gifted & talented programs would say of those programs. If so, then they must be studied to make sure they don't disproportionately exclude certain racial groups. If racial imbalance is a guideline for cancellation then it should apply to every program and activity.
In your equivalence, the "sport" is studying math (or something) and everyone is participating, simply on different levels. Your equivalence would only work if the non-gifted students weren't allowed to study anything at all.
No. Both sports and gifted & talented programs require students that are more "gifted" at the activity to participate. If this elitist selection is bad for one then it is bad for the other.
That's my point. Parent poster was saying that excluding students from high school sports was the same as excluding them from gifted programs. I countered by saying that, for the equivalence to work, the students wouldn't be able to study at all to be like exclusion from high school sports.
