Rather than providing an anthology of tests and assessment techniques, this book focuses on academic success and its maintenance and the role of testing. The discussion opens with a consideration of the relationship between assessment and curriculum. It is important to consider carefully what it is we want to teach, and it is equally important to place curricular items in a hierarchy of difficulty that makes them teachable. Both tests and curriculum should be prepared with this in mind, in a complimentary, content-valid way, not as independent and unrelated program elements. Topics discussed include: (1) academic success and failure; (2) types of tests; (3) reliability and validity; (4) tests for instruction (success-based assessment); (5) the role of the teacher as assessor for planned instruction; (6) effective curriculum-based assessment; (7) tests for accountability; (8) grading; (9) success-based assessment and school organization; and (10) vision and hearing assessment. (Contains 35 references.) (SLD)