I remember hearing an interview with a woman who was doing charter school-type work in the UK (IIRC), where most of her students were thought of as "underperforming".

She was successful because they emphasized drills, lots of drills, and more drills.

Teachers and students hate drills. Teachers, because they're tedious to grade, and students because they're boring. But they work. It's no different than doing the same Super Mario Bros. level again and again until you time your jumps just right.

I've often thought that gamification of drills would be a great way to get kids to learn their math facts or whatever, but there seems to be an allergy to doing this in the US education system. What the US education system seems to be addicted to is moving from one hype/fad to the next, as that's where the money trough seems to be.