The papers presented at this conference review current research on effective educational practices for low-achieving students and identify those that might be applied to programs funded under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981. A function assumed by several conference participants was to act as reactor to papers written for a parcicular session. This report reviews five papers presented at the session on curricular and instructional issues in compensatory education. For the most part the papers focus on research in the general classroom setting, not compensatory education research, and research on children in general, not those who are considered disadvantaged. Implications are drawn from that research for planners of compensatory education programs and services. The papers agree that the problem is not with the disadvantaged child, and that improved teaching and raised teacher expectations as well as improvement of schools as educational organizations will raise achievement levels. The possible effects of linguistic, language, cultural, health or other differences are considered to have little or no impact. Under this assumption, the implications for Chapter 1 students are that those programs and practices which work with other students should work with Chapter 1 students. However, teachers and planners must understand which human differences make a difference and attend to them in their planning. A list of references is appended. (PS)