Although reports calling for middle level schooling reform first appeared in the mid-1970s, change has been slow to come. In Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century (1989), the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development outlined eight essential elements of middle level education. Drawing from the Carnegie Council's recommendations, the National Middle School Association identified six characteristics and six program components that "delineate a vision of what developmentally responsive middle schools could be and should be" (National Middle School Association 2000, 10). Making it clear that the primary goal of middle schools is the intellectual development of every middle school student, Jackson and Davis provide seven recommendations in the recently published Turning Points 2000: Educating Adolescents in the 21st Century (2000). However, questions regarding the implementation and effectiveness of these middle level reform components still abound today. Middle schools have had difficulties both embracing the initiative and implementing Turning Points' recommendations with a high degree of fidelity. This study responds to the problem with research that focuses on the implementation of middle level reform components. In general, it found little difference between the various types of middle school reform in high-performing schools (HPS) and low-performing schools (LPS). Using rating features such as structure, attitude, skill, climate, and instructional practice to identify middle school constructs, findings indicate eight of these features exist in both HPS and LPS. Overall results indicate a 73 percent rate of implementation in both types of schools. However, findings also illustrate differences between the degrees to which middle level reform is implemented at the various schools. It is concluded that factors other than the reforms themselves contribute to these discrepancies.