How can public school teachers effectively address the epidemic of poor reading comprehension amongst the nation's youth? How can teachers address the respective needs of every student in the classroom and improve reading comprehension skills simultaneously? The aforementioned inquiries were used by the researchers to investigate best practices in the field of academia that will assist educators in closing the gap between accountability and student achievement. The researchers find that levels of accountability are determined by students' performance or lack thereof on high-stakes testing. Furthermore, there is a direct correlation between poor student performance and poor reading comprehension skills. Thus, educators must begin addressing the individualized needs of every student in order to bridge the gap between accountability and student achievement.