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In 1991 Arizona embarked on a program to change schools and make them more accountable for educational achievement. The instrument of reform was an assessment program known as the Arizona Student Assessment Program (ASAP), the most notable feature of which was a performance assessment that was added to an already extensive battery of state-mandated tests. This paper contains a narrative account of the events of the 4-year existence of ASAP and the research the Center for the Study of Evaluation at the University of California, Los Angeles conducted on the role of assessment in educational change. These events are explored, from 1991 until the demise of ASAP in 1995, in the context of theoretical frameworks drawn from policy studies, principally the theory of political culture. The assumption driving the use of assessment to change schools is that teachers will find ways to teach consistent with the assessment adopted. The ASAP was examined through a policy study of the beliefs of policymakers and other stakeholders, a multisite qualitative study of elementary schools in ASAP's first year of operation, and surveys and interviews of educators about ASAP impact. No sense can be made of the death of ASAP on technical or policy grounds. To understand the demise of the ASAP is to understand that such tests primarily serve political functions. The experience of the ASAP illustrates that the dynamics of wins and losses in the political arena are essential features of mandated assessment programs. (Contains 11 references.) (SLD)

This article reports on a study of a new performance-based test mandate in the state of Arizona. The measurement-driven reform provided an opportunity to examine the interplay of policy and practice, specifically the use of testing to effect educational change. Attempts to reform schools through mandating assessments are categorized as behaviorist and cognitive-constructivist. Beliefs and assumptions underlying each model are analyzed. It is argued that recent attempts to meld cognitive-constructivist beliefs about pupil learning with behaviorist views of reforming schools and teaching teachers are contradictory. The Arizona Student Assessment Program embodies the contradictions inherent in the use of mandates to accomplish capacity-oriented goals. Its focus on compliance and control in effect undermines its potential to create the context necessary for competence in educational reform. (Contains 65 references.) (Author/SLD)

The 1992-93 school year marked the first year of implementation of the statewide mandate of the Arizona Student Assessment Program (ASAP), which revised previous legislation. Iowa Test of Basic Skills testing requirements were restricted to grades 2 and 7, and districts were allowed greater flexibility in their own testing, which had previously been almost exclusively through criterion-referenced tests. Performance assessments were supported by the new legislation, and teachers generally saw the ASAP as a low-stakes assessment in line with educational trends. The implementation of the ASAP and its changes were studied in four elementary schools during the first implementation year in a multiple case-study design with various data collection methods. Results indicate that local responses to the ASAP were varied and that differences in implementation were significant. Common among the sites was the belief that testing from an outside agency is still separate from instruction and is an add-on to normal school operation. An appendix contains a cross-site data matrix. (Contains 14 references.) (SLD)

Recent incorporation of a performance assessment in Arizona's test mandate provides an opportunity to examine the assumptions and beliefs underlying measurement-driven reform. Efforts to meld cognitive-constructivist beliefs about pupil learning and assessment contradict behaviorist beliefs about changing teachers and reforming schools. Mandates depend on coercion to create conformity; open systems are needed to foster lasting change. (Contains 68 references.) (MLH)