Hi MAmom,
As a state MA is weak in gifted education - there is no gifted education mandate, there is no gifted IEP, there is no state funding.
I imagine there is a lot of variability between individual town public school systems. My only personal experience is with the Cambridge MA school district - unfortunately there is very, very little done for gifted kids in Cambridge. There are some recent moves with a group called CALA (http://cambridgeadvanced.org/) doing advocacy that has gotten the district to hire an "academic challenge coordinator" - but still very little happening on-the-ground, especially in the younger grades.
In Cambridge it is mostly up to the individual teachers to implement the official policy of "differentiation," ("every child should be challenged within the heterogenous classroom" or some such) - with very wide variability. We have had some good experiences, and some horrendous ones, and have friends who have had both. There is resistance in the district in general to advancing kids, though again with some individual teacher variability.
Hope that helps.
