To assist low achieving students in the mastery of instructional objectives in major subject areas, the Ministry of Education of Israel published definitions of Minimum Achievement Requirements (MAR) for specific subjects at all grade levels. To examine the feasibility of the MAR approach and to determine whether it contributed to the attainment of the stated goal, three short duration, focussed studies were conducted. The first demonstrated that, given a brief explanation, teachers can define MARs and focus their teaching on these items. The second study demonstrated that centrally defined MAR specifications, if adequately communicated, did affect the selection of topics for teaching. The third study demonstrated that even under highly favorable conditions, teacher willingness to teach MAR objectives in the class did not eliminate the problem of low achieving learners. (Author/BZ)