If I may jump in on that last point... we are in a New Jersey district factor J district, also with no gifted program. I am currently researching this as a parent member of the district's strategic planning action team, and many, many I and J districts have gifted programs that do more than pay lip service to differentiation. Upper Saddle River, Chatham, Livingston, Mendham, Bernards, Princeton, Montclair, New Providence are among the ones I've found so far. It is true that NJ does not have a strong mandate for gifted education, but quite a number of school districts are managing to provide it anyway.
Stacey, my first-grader spends most of the morning on reading and writing, using the Lucy Calkins/Reading and Writing Workshop program. Math is Everyday Math. Science and social studies seem pretty minimal. No world language until a Rosetta Stone-based program in upper elementary.
Differentiation for reading, not math. Writing paragraphs, heavily genre-driven (so DS was reproved for writing about different kinds of birds in his Thanksgiving "personal essay"). Homework is one Everyday Math worksheet per night, plus studying for the weekly spelling test, plus the occasional (less than monthly) poster project.
