Homework has been a constant source of frustration for us as well. Both of our gifted kids struggle with it from time to time but for different reasons.
It is unreasonable for teachers to expect a 9yo (or even a 15yo) to have full executive functioning capabilities. Some people believe that gifted programs are for smart kids who are motivated and focused, but that's not what the law states. If your child has executive function problems, see if you can get a 504 or IEP. That has helped us force the teachers to be flexible in terms of homework deadlines and content.
The other major problem with homework is lack of clarity. So many assignments are not fully specified, or require that the students make logical inferences to understand what to do. If my wife and I can look at an assignment and come to two different but equally reasonable interpretations of what it is asking, how do they expect a child to figure it out?
It helps to know that we are not alone. The weird thing is, he will do whatever homework he can get done at school (he came home last night having finished his math and literature work for the day, even turning in the latter ahead of time), it's anything he needs to do at home that's the issue.
Agreed that some of the worksheets are not set up well at all.
After reading your post, I did some searching on EF... you're right, schools don't seem to get that there's a wide variety in EF levels.
