The culmination of work by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's (ASCD) Urban Middle Grades Network, a special Advisory Panel on Improving Student Achievement, and the Improving Student Achievement Research Panel, this book proposes a repertoire of tools for educators meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. The book is divided into nine chapters preceded by a foreword (Gene R. Carter) and a Preface (Helene Hodges) which set forth ASCD's values and beliefs about teaching, the organization's educational philosophy, and ASCD's 3-High Achievement Model. Chapter 1, "Educating Everybody's Children" (Marie Carbo), provides a demographic portrait of poverty, race, and ethnicity of America's children; school funding inequities; and the need for a shift in paradigms. Chapter 2, "Barriers to Good Instruction" prepared by the ASCD Advisory Panel on Improving Student Achievement, presents an overview of attitudes, beliefs, and institutional practices that are often barriers to good instruction. Chapter 3, "A Baker's Dozen: Effective Instructional Strategies" (Lloyd W. Kline) presents strategies that range in complexity and magnitude, cut across content areas, and share the following characteristics: they are inclusive (not exclusive), work best in context with other ideas, focus on students working with social situations, are interactive and interdisciplinary, and empower students to be actively involved in their own learning (the chapter contains a bibliography of 138 items). Chapter 4, "Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners" (Marietta Saravia-Shore and Eugene Garcia) discusses teaching strategies shown by research to be effective in educating student learners from diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds, and who come from communities of low socioeconomic status. Chapter 5, "Strategies for Increasing Achievement in Reading" (Marie Carbo and Barbara Kapinus) examines the state of the art of reading instruction and details classroom techniques that enhance reading achievement. Chapter 6 focuses on "Strategies for Increasing Achievement in Writing" (Sally Hampton), while chapter 7 presents strategies for Increasing Achievement in Mathematics" (Beatriz d'Ambrozio and others). Chapter 8 discusses "Effective Strategies for Increasing Achievement in Oral Communication (James Chesebro and others). The final chapter, titled "ASCD Talks Back," provides an opportunity for educators to respond to the ideas in the book. Contains over 100 references. (DR)