So what you're saying is don't bother doing the easy work in school? My DC are required to do whatever homework they bring home, regardless of how easy or difficult it is. Just because they may be above grade level doesn't mean they are above doing what is expected of them in their class.
Actually, I didn't say anything about what they should do in school. There, the considerations are a bit different: for a child not to do their assigned work might be disruptive, and the teacher is right there and better able to determine whether the work is appropriate. At home, neither of those is true. I accept a responsibility to make sure my child does tasks assigned by school if they are educationally valuable, but not just because the child has been told to do them. Absolutely, I'll tell my child not to do something, if I consider it inappropriate, and I'll explain to the teacher why I've done so. If it's something that would only take a few minutes, leaving plenty of time for appropriate activities, I might just let it go; but the OP was saying that the inappropriate work was making it impossible to fit in appropriate work. In that case, I think the responsible thing to do is to substitute.
I think the aim of school is to get children to the point of being able to take responsibility for their own learning - not to teach them to be obedient.
