Education is a foundation for the intellectual and pragmatic societal structure seen today. However, what is education and how can educators truly assess a student’s education? According to Mark K. Smith, “education... is a process of inviting truth and possibility, of encouraging and giving time to discovery” (2). School administrators have outlined a black-and-white scenario to assess this definition where students are judged on either their summative assessment, known as a proficiency model, or their preliminary and final exams, referred to as the growth targets model. In terms of student education, customized learning results in a student-centered and approachable atmosphere. According to Dr. Lisa Lachlan-Haché and Marina Castro, principal researchers at the American Institutes for Research, in “Proficiency or Growth? An Exploration of Two Approaches for Writing Student Learning Targets,” the growth model allows teachers to individualize academic achievements per student while still using testing to determine placement and a growth index (9). Since U.S. President George W. Bush passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, however, schools have oriented their teaching pedagogy and philosophy towards a non-individual aspect, ignoring the problems that are attributed and a result of adhering to the standardized student proficiency model.
