Written for the general public, this article unpacks the "dialogue gap" in education and raises concerns about what can happen when groups dependent on one another are not talking. Part of the problem involves a matter of scale; policymakers rarely talk about children as individuals as opposed to as aggregates. The larger policy context loses the child in the push to have standardized assessments drive instruction. We are challenged to include students in conversations about assessment and achievement so that they might embrace our ambitions and achieve the standards they hold for themselves.