Chapter six explores the ways that middle schools teachers adjusted their behavior to fit reform guidelines. Middle school employees continued to shape decisions to fit practices that had proven, over long periods of time, “consistent with the stable web of beliefs and assumptions that are part of the culture” (Stigler and Hiebert, 1999: 87). Those beliefs and assumptions were tied to the exigencies of entrance examinations rather than to ideals about children’s love for learning. Interview and observation data indicate that middle school teachers were pressed to move in one direction—but the foundation on which they operated remained stationary.