This issue of Educational Leadership focuses on how teachers can shape instruction to meet the unique needs of learners. At present, though, there is an even stronger trend toward creating common standards for all students. The current approach taken by the proponents of Tougher Standards is incompatible with personalized learning and with the interests of kids at the margins, and, ultimately, I think it is incompatible with excellence. The message here seems to be that individual differences either don't exist or are illegitimate and should be ignored. This wording willfully disregards the fact that not all kids learn at the same pace or should be expected to do so.
Most standards are highly specific.
Often they consist of hundreds of detailed items, facts, and subskills that students have to know. Harold Howe II, the former U.S. Commissioner of Education, was once asked what national standards should be like if they had to be issued. The more narrow and rigid the requirements are, the less responsive educators can be to what distinguishes one circumstance from another, or your child from mine. We need to make several distinctions here. All students deserve the chance to do meaningful problem solving in math class rather than to be turned into human calculators, and to learn to read and write by doing real reading and writing rather than to be forced to plod through skills devoid of context.