The purpose of this presentation is to describe and analyze one instance of educational policy making at the State level. Specifically, the discussion focuses on the proposal, passage, and implementation of a legislatively mandated program for the Statewide assessment of education in Michigan. The analytical framework utilized in the analysis depicts the policy-making process as taking place along a continuum wherein societal forces gradually merge into formal or informal activities and movements, which in turn lead to political action, and finally to formal enactment. Utilizing such a framework, the paper investigates (1) the socioeconomic, intellectual, and political forces behind the assessment movement; (2) the subsequent expression of individual and group values regarding the need for reliable performance indicators in education; (3) the resultant political activity generated by these individual and group expressions; and (4) the passage and eventual implementation of the program. (Author)