Our school district is all about "horizontal differentiation" as well. And only in circumstances where there is actually a good teacher or an advocating (to them, "pushy") parent. Otherwise all kids do the same math regardless of ability. Basically they take the "enriched" materials from the curriculum for that grade level. The ones that are put out by the publisher. So the kid might have to explain 3 different ways to solve 15-10 rather than just doing it one way. My first grader scored >99.9th percentile on the math section of the Woodcock Johnson and the school still insisted on this horizontal differentiation and said that would be all that is necessary. Otherwise there would be "gaps" (for instance the poor kid would miss the unit on how to measure with a ruler and it would ultimately mess up the state standardized testing). Finally we took him out of the school and put him in a different district school. The teacher seems to get it and did a bunch of above-level assessments on him. She took the results (for instance the report on the computerized testing stating "suggested learning objectives") and is basically following that and printing out worksheets online. He has brought home above- level homework on graphs, probability, converting measurement (like how many feet is 986 inches). So, the rest of the class might get 1st grade graph homework, and DS might get 3rd grade graph homework. She works with him while the rest of the class is on the computer learning their 3+2 math facts or occupied with other things. While the rest of the class is doing 1st grade math and she is working with them, she also sometimes puts him on the computer (or ipad?) to do Adapted Mind Math on his own. The work that he is doing on there is above grade level. She does not make him sit through 1st grade math lectures (thank god!).
Next year, I don't know what is going to happen with a new teacher, but for right now he is being vertically accelerated within the classroom. The ideal situation would be to have him move to a different classroom with kids who are doing the same level work, but the district doesn't do that anymore and won't allow it under most circumstances.
The teacher says that she will work with the teacher next year to explain what she is doing, the results of the assessments, and what works/doesn't work so that hopefully there will be some continuity. Once there is a teacher that gets it and makes it work, it would be pretty hard for a new teacher to say "I'm not going to do that anymore."
