Enough has been written about academic assessment to fill a library, but when one thinks about it, the whole enterprise really amounts to a straightforward two-step dance. Collect information about how students are doing, then share that information with the students and their parents. Gather and report--that's pretty much it. Collecting information doesn't require tests, and sharing that information doesn't require grades. In fact, students would be a lot better off without either of these relics from a less enlightened age. Why tests are not a particularly useful way to assess student learning, and what thoughtful educators do instead, are questions that must wait. In this article, the author takes a hard look at the second practice, the use of letters or numbers as evaluative summaries of how well students have done.