This manual is presented to assist local districts in complying with the requirements of the Massachusetts Policy on Basic Skills Improvement, whose principal goal is to help students master basic skills prior to high school graduation. The policy requires schools to evaluate student achievement in the basic skills at least once during the early elementary, later elementary and secondary levels. This manual is designed to provide an overview of the test development process for those districts that plan to develop their own achievement tests at one or more of these levels. The standards and procedures adopted in this manual are based on criteria established by the Massachusetts Department of Education in the areas of content, bias, item quality, and technical quality for the approval of secondary level basic skills tests. These criteria appear in the form of checklists in appendices A-D of this manual. The sections of this manual include: deciding whether to develop a test; identifying basic skills objectives; obtaining items; reviewing items; field testing; constructing test forms; obtaining statistics for test forms; writing a technical manual; obtaining state approval; and a bibliography. (Author/PN)