Geocentric -> heliocentric -> learnercentric? [Hmm]

I've been unable to shake two recent online conversations from my mind: Matt Townsley's Caught not taught at his blog MeTA Musings and Dr. Scott Mcleod's Are educational leadership faculty seen as 'leaders' by the leaders that they serve? at his blog Dangerously Irrelevant, which evolved from a Twitter discussion.  I see these two posts as addressing the same core issue in education: what's behind our passion?  The reason I have so much respect for both of these educators is how they have both shown that their priorities are focused on the students.

Matt asks the question,

Is what we're doing in our classrooms worth catching?

Scott asks

Will my "roll up my sleeves and get into schools / write in places where others can find me / actually try to be helpful" path be successful in the long run in academe?

Both of their posts can be summed up in one word:

Students

One of my biggest goals for myself as an educator is that I never lose sight of the needs of my students.  It is because of them that I am pursuing this noblest of professions.  This focus on students keeps me able to answer "I sure hope so!" to both of their questions.

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I spent yesterday on a site visit watching another school's Data Day for their IDM process.  I was in awe of how the IDM process puts the students' needs as the #1 visible, ever-present priority for the entire school.  It takes gutsy leaders to keep everyone on track, and organized, driven teachers to maintain the amount of data required for the students to benefit from IDM, but for more than 3 1/2 hours yesterday, almost all I heard were updates on student progress, ideas to intervene with students who were showing signs of slipping, and positive cheerleading from teachers about students who had made tremendous strides throughout the year.  Not every student had made these positive strides, but because of the teamwork of this group of teachers, every student had a program in place and a teacher watching that student's progress.  I left feeling excited for that school!

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Today, as part of our district's identification plan, I interviewed students for their Personalized Education Plans (PEPs).  A PEP is analogous to the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that we use for our Special Ed students, except that we use it for our gifted kids.  These were the three questions I asked them (we talked through the questions):

1. What are your learning style preferences?
2. What are your strengths as a learner?
3. What do you need assistance with as a learner?

Going through these interviews with my students got me thinking, Why don't all kids have PEPs?  If our Special Ed kids have IEPs and our Talented and Gifted kids have PEPs, why aren't we documenting the learning styles, strengths, and needs of all our kids?  It's a question I probably would have felt was too idealistic before I went on that IDM site visit. 

Do you see a benefit in interviewing every student with these three questions?  Enough of a return-on-investment to put in the time?