This report describes a project to develop more effective types of assessment in high school classes. The targeted population was high school students in two different middle-class communities in the northern suburbs of Chicago (Illinois). One site in a very stable, homogeneous community, predominantly white, contains 1,155 students. The other site, with 2,207 students, is very multicultural. The problems with traditional assessment tools are documented through teacher and student surveys, taped interviews, and a search of current literature. Analysis of problem causes reveals that traditional assessment tools are inadequate for the increasing trend toward including special education students in mainstream classrooms. The old-fashioned method of assessing everything with paper and pencil is outmoded in light of today's research on multiple intelligences and interdisciplinary strategies. A review of solution strategies suggested by experts in education, combined with an analysis of the problem setting, resulted in the selection of three modes of intervention for this action research project. The first was to determine faculty knowledge of and use of different types of education through a survey completed by 45% of the first school's 117 teachers and 39% of the other school's 179 teachers. Student attitudes regarding different types of education were assessed through a survey of 14 students from the smaller school and 26 from the larger. Models of teaching using various performance tools were introduced. Postintervention data indicated that students are more engaged in performance assessment tasks than in traditional objective tests. Students spend more time preparing for performance assessment, are more likely to learn transferable assessment lessons from their work, describe the assessment in a more positive manner, are more proud of their work, and perceive performance assessment as a better means of showing what they have learned. Four appendixes present project survey instruments. (Contains 10 tables and 17 references.) (Author/SLD)