Grouping students to facilitate instruction alone, instructional delivery systems which maintain student dependency on teachers, the practice of teaching to disseminate information without mastery, class norm-referenced grading practices, and study habits which focus on getting grades, help produce the educational dilemma faced today. In mastery learning, instructional objectives are hierarchical skill sequences from readiness to mastery. Student learning is compared to a fixed criterion (i.e., percent correct) tasks completed, objectives mastered, etc. These measures reveal the number of item or objectives that have been mastered and tests specifically identify students' concept weaknesses and strengths. Subsequent instruction either re-teaches in areas of weakness, or provides enrichment or extensions of the curriculum for students who have mastered the concepts. If any school system is to increase the expectations for student achievement, it must change from a norm-referenced placement, and competitive grading and instructional model, to a mastery methodology. (JD)