Customization, not standardization

Public education is very standardized. I know, state the obvious. At my junior high we have state standardized tests and national standardized tests in math, science, and English. In addition to these standardized tests our administration has asked the faculty to create common assessments, so basically standard tests within departments. The administration defends this action by arguing that common assessments within curriculum departments creates "viable, guaranteed curriculum". I can see the value in common assessments. When multiple teachers teach the same subject at the same grade level it creates a type of equality between classes. Students shouldn't fret over which teacher they have because they all have the same policies, the same agenda, and the same tests. If a student needs to change a schedule and switch into another teacher's classroom there won't be much of a change. Basically, these benefits help administration with school policy and organization, counselors with scheduling, and maybe teachers with collaboration, but is this best for students.

I teach history and this current vision of education is not the same as its origins. From what I have studied about early education in the American colonies, schools were a mix of children of all ages, which means students were all at different academic levels. Early teachers did not deliver monolithic lessons and lectures but facilitated individual student learning.

I see technology as being a device that can return classrooms to a place where students can learn at their own pace. I believe the technology is here, but now the problem is the relationship with technology to standardization. Educators can fit technology into the current form of standardized education, or technology can disrupt the current trend and make public education more studentcentric.