A little off topic, but in a similar vein, our teacher made a big deal about a particular differentiated math lesson with DS. He was doing "number pairs" (their way of teaching X + Y = Z for sums up to 10) and they made a big deal about DS only wanting to do something simple like 1 + 1 = 2 during this lesson. They couldn't get him to do other more complex number pairs. At first it bothered me a little. Then DW pointed out that to him, it's all the same. Plus 1, +3, +5, etc., it doesn't really matter. Maybe his way of rebelling and saying "Don't you get it... it's just addition..."
But I think the reason that they are hung up on it is that he'll have to take standards tests.
For what it's worth, our teacher has told us directly that DS will not be taught more than addition this year. Perhaps for the same reason (gaps). We have our GIEP in a few weeks, so we'll see.
JB
