Education and Finland

I really enjoyed this recent article from The Atlantic, (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/). There was a lot of interesting information, but one of the things that stood out most to me was the fact that Finland does not have large scale testing at every grade. They have well educated teachers who are taught how to design good classroom level assessments. What a concept! To actually train teachers to design and implement classroom level assessments designed for their individual teaching style and the individual students' in their classroom rather than relying on a large scale tests (which we know have measurement error) for everything.  In the US we keep standardizing everything more and more,  not only standardized tests, but standardized curriculum with pacing guides to make sure that all teachers are teaching the same thing each day. As if by making every classroom the same we are making everything fair and equitable. Perhaps if every kid had the exact same knowledge and experience when they walked in the classroom and every teacher had the exact same knowledge and experience that would work, but that is not how things are.  Even my identical twin girls with the exact same DNA in addition to being raised in the same household have very different strengths, needs and interests.  They don't learn everything at the same pace.  If teachers are not allowed to individualize their instruction (which includes assessments) to the needs of the students in their classroom than most kids are not going to succeed.