I initially thought I would pursue, through action research, the study of what effect, if any, teacher experience has on student achievement. This topic is something that I am very curious about. However, I think for the purposes of this course I am going to focus on using action research to explore possibilities for expanding our current Accelerated Reading Instruction program. Since the current program, in conjuction with our guided reading, results in one hour and 45 minutes of instructional time being spent with the teacher providing small group instruction (4 days a week), I would like to expand the program to involve more adults in the form of parent volunteers and soldier volunteers from our Adopt-a-Unit. The problem with our current system is that we focus most of our efforts on struggling students. As a result, high-achieving students have much fewer interactions with adults during the course of their day than do low-achieving students. I understand that in order to receive the desired AEIS ratings, we have to focus on getting the low-achieving students on grade level. I am saddened that in the process of doing so, we often ignore our high-achieving students. They wind up working independently or in unattended small groups so that teachers can spend inordinate amounts of time with struggling students. I think this particularly bothers me as a parent of high-achieving students. I believe that our educational system should meet the needs of all students, not just those who perform below grade level. High-achieving students deserve adult interactions as much as low-achieving students.