The deficiency of American primary and secondary schools as compared to schools worldwide has long been documented. The Teaching Gap highlights exactly where our problems might lie, and lays out a plan for how to deal with it. Progress would be slow, but tangible. Our country, however, seems to prefer vast and immediate overhauls that have historically failed (see: New math, etc.). If we had implemented the changes in The Teaching Gap in the decade in which it was written, we would be seeing results by now. Instead, every change we make gets reverted. The Common Core State Standards will prove over the next few years to be either another one of these attempts or a large step in the right direction. It might finally be the latter, as its creation was informed by practices that work best in every state in the US, as well as high- performing countries around the world.

The purpose of this project is to aid a chess coach in instructing a scholastic chess team. Included in the project is a guide to starting a scholastic chess club or team and recommended procedures for developing it. The reader is expected to know basic chess terminology and have at least a beginner's understanding of the game of chess (though a chess coach should probably be a competitive chess player). The portion of the introduction on starting a chess club is largely understandable to a person without a background in chess. A tactic is a combination of moves that clarify a chess position in favor of the executor. Chess problems are the demonstration of tactics in a chess game, and their purpose is to increase the player's tactical eye and his or her enjoyment of the game. The chess tactics in this project are geared toward an intermediate to advanced level chess player.