Middle schools often struggle to provide students with the necessary academic rigor to promote academic growth. Many students experience academic stagnation when schools fail to provide appropriate academic services. Dani Tinkel's article examines how the limited priorities of middle school inadvertently promote disengagement and underachievement and what schools can do to ensure that all middle school students have opportunities to be cognitively challenged, including through programs like Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) and the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM), by providing a vision for a balanced middle school experience.