Evaluation instruments and current practices used in measuring achievement in Ontario, Canada elementary schools were examined. An analytical review of currently available achievement measures was made in relation to the objectives of "The Formative Years", a circular issued on the Ontario Minestry on Education. Results of item analyses indicated that all available achievement measures focus strongly on the basic skills objectives of reading, writing, and arithmetic. These findings hold for comprehensive and specific domain measures as well as for most locally-prepared measures. An in-depth examination of the evaluation practices of nine selected school boards revealed that most programs had been instituted as a result of external accountability pressures. The usual first step involved use of norm referenced measures which provided data to meet these needs. Some boards felt, however, that these measures did not meet certain goals regarding relevance to local curriculum and provision of individual prescriptive-diagnostic data, and so began to develop locally-based instruments. A variety of commercial and locally-prepared tests were used in most of the boards studied. Results are used for a great variety of purposes at all levels of a system, but are not communicated directly to parents in any board studied. (Author/BW)