A need for iZoning Committees?

I was scanning headlines on the BBC's website when I came across this article. I am rather interested in the education system, and after being around the lab school on our excellent field trip to Chicago, I couldn't help but read the article. The article summarizes, for those of you too lazy to open a link, a new broad concept for adapting schools, in this instance New York's, for both advancing technology and also individual needs in school. With a French teacher in a public school for a mother, I have a good idea of how difficult a class can be without adequate time in the library or with computers, or if their is a special needs kid in the class. All of these factors people want to be addressed, and this new iZone idea is some sort of solution for these problems in New York public schools. But really, it would be best if you just read the article. Go on. Open the link. Good job.

Now that that's settled, I wanted to focus on one of the issues the plan is supposed to solve, that of individual needs. Brooke Jackson, a NYC lab school principle and promoter of the iZone, talked about the varying needs of different students.
 "We have students who are ready for graduate level work now - and we have students who will not make progress unless they're in a three to one staff situation."
It is this type of grouping, one based on learning styles, that will really help students.  But it is more than that. Arthur Vanderdeen, former head of innovation for New York's Department of Educcation, put it best by saying,
 "It's a wholesale rethinking of a school and its cultural mindset."
A rethinking designed to maximize student potential, without pushing them to far or providing openings for underachievement.

Of course, as with every new concept plan, there are some flaws in forms of practical implementation on a city scale. Standing out first, as always, is cost. It is pretty common knowledge that the more teachers a school has to hire, the more financial strain is put on that community. On an inner-city family, that strain might be too much, especially when Jackson calls a possible need for a 3-to-1 student teacher ratio. Also, the iZone concept calls for much more attention to technology use, which is one of the most expensive ways to put material into a student's hands. With maintenance, program purchases, etc., this would most definitely add up in cost.

In all,  I think the ideas brought to the table by the iZone idea are really neat and useful, but so far, it seems to me a practical and efficient method of using these  ideas has been developed yet. What do you think? Are these concepts good ones? Should the iZone concept be carried out?