Change every child needs: every child in American public education should have an individualized education plan.

Change every child needs: every child in American public education should have an individualized education plan. THIS YEAR'S PRESIDENTIAL election campaigns have beendominated by talk of change, but in politics talk of change is cheap.Unfortunately, for the most part it's it's?1. Contraction of it is.2. Contraction of it has. See Usage Note at its.it'sit is or it hasit'sbe ~have the same story in publiceducation, where most talk of change--despite the bestintentions--produces few meaningful results and change initiatives meltaway like passing fads. In the end, everything continues on as it has ina strange kind of obstinate ob��sti��nateadj.1. Stubbornly adhering to an attitude, opinion, or course of action.2. Difficult to alleviate or cure. stability. But there is change that every child needs. It's simple,really, almost self-evident self-ev��i��dentadj.Requiring no proof or explanation.self-ev when you think about it: Every child inAmerican public education should have an individualized in��di��vid��u��al��ize?tr.v. in��di��vid��u��al��ized, in��di��vid��u��al��iz��ing, in��di��vid��u��al��iz��es1. To give individuality to.2. To consider or treat individually; particularize.3. education plan.In my opinion, IEPs are the key to education improvement and shouldbecome the focus of our reform initiatives. Moving On or Left Behind? Reforming the system to be based on individualized education plansfor every student requires a radical departure from the standardone-to-many instructional model that for so long has dominated Americaneducation. It means a dramatic departure from grouping students bychronological age chron��o��log��i��cal agen. Abbr. CAThe number of years a person has lived, used especially in psychometrics as a standard against which certain variables, such as behavior and intelligence, are measured. and moving virtually everyone on to the next grade orlevel regardless of whether or not knowledge has been gained, or skillsmastered, which are prerequisite pre��req��ui��site?adj.Required or necessary as a prior condition: Competence is prerequisite to promotion.n. to moving on successfully. The concept of not leaving any child behind fits well into theantiquated academic model of mass production and mass promotion. Itassumes that since moving students on is of paramount importance tomaintaining the system, districts will make sure no one is left behind.We may want to ensure mastery of skills or demonstrated achievement, butthey are subordinate to the higher goal of students moving on. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] If students don't move on--as measured by test scores--thenyour school is failing. And since failing schools--like failingstudents--are problematic for the system, the system adjusts, not toimprove student achievement but to reduce the number of failing schools,even by lowering the academic bar. The system simply doesn'taccommodate leaving students behind, so sooner or later virtually allstudents move on, ready or not. Mass Customization Moving on before you're ready has devastating dev��as��tate?tr.v. dev��as��tat��ed, dev��as��tat��ing, dev��as��tates1. To lay waste; destroy.2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. academic effectsand is likely a significant cause of the unacceptable dropout (1) On magnetic media, a bit that has lost its strength due to a surface defect or recording malfunction. If the bit is in an audio or video file, it might be detected by the error correction circuitry and either corrected or not, but if not, it is often not noticed by the human rate ofnearly 50 percent in the primary districts of our nation's fiftylargest metro areas This article is about the music production team. For the article about population centers, see metropolitan area. Metro Area are a Brooklyn-based dance music production team composed of Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani. , which I discussed in last month's column. Thegraduation Graduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the associated ceremony. The date of event is often called degree day. The event itself is also called commencement, convocation or invocation. rate for these districts would likely be far higher if we hada way m individually evaluate the learning styles and needs of everystudent as though each was the sole focus of the system, with aresulting individualized education plan., monitored and adjusted asnecessary. That's the key to success for homeschooled students, and itcan work for students in inner-city schools too. On average,homeschooled students don't have superqualified teachers, betterresources, or better equipment, but they do have a customized curriculumthat's adjusted regularly based on assessments of individualprogress. Granted, that seems impossible to do in the typical public schoolsetting, where one teacher is responsible for 25 students or more(sometimes many more). In fact, some may say that implementingindividualized education plans for each student is not a practical goalfor public education because it is cost prohibitive pro��hib��i��tive? also pro��hib��i��to��ryadj.1. Prohibiting; forbidding: took prohibitive measures.2. . But it's onlycost prohibitive if we refuse to change the structure of our presentmonolithic system A monolithic architecture is where processing, data and the user interface all reside on the same system .Mainframe computers used a monolithic architecture with considerable success. , which enables only a few students with "specialneeds" to reap the benefits of individualized education plans. Of course, the truth is that every child has special needs,interests, and abilities, and every child should have an individualizededucation plan. Individualized learning based on customized curriculumis the best way to move all children forward, as opposed to just havingthem moving on, and it's the surest way to not leave any behind. The question is how to implement an individualized learning modelin American public education. I'm convinced that it can be done,and next month I'll outline some specifics for how we can create anew era of education based on mass customization--that is, providingstudents with the benefits of individualized education plans whilemaintaining the economies of scale of mass production. Daniel E. Kinnaman is publisher of DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION