Various notions about the obstacles to, and the conditions needed for, school districts' linking of externally mandated testing and evaluation with instruction are discussed. Two major points are made, the first being that evaluation and testing communities must attend to the needs of administrators and teachers as they are manifest in the district environment, if testing and evaluation efforts are to be used for instructional improvement at the local level. The second point refers to the actual linking of testing and evaluation with instruction; a variety of coordinating mechanisms and a range of related operations are needed to compose district-wide management subsystems. Also highlighted are background information on the growth of evaluation and testing, observations on school districts as organizations, and tentative propositions about school districts' linking of evaluation and testing with instruction. (Author/GK)