In the face of the great nationwide push for standardized testing, Nebraska has established a system that relies on educators to design their own assessments. Ms. Roschewski reports on the progress of this unique initiative. THE APPROACH to standards, assessment, and accountability in Nebraska is unlike that in any other state. Nebraska's STARS (School-based Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System) is not based on external mandates and compliance but relies instead on the professional judgment of teachers about whether their students are learning. Commissioner Doug Christensen has remained steadfast in his belief that decisions about student learning reside in the classroom where learning occurs, not in the legislature, the governor's office, or the department of education.1 The Nebraska STARS plan is ambitious and somewhat idealistic. It provides statewide public accountability, but its first priorities and purpose are student achievement and school improvement. Ken Jones and Paul Ongtooguk have suggested that there are measures of success other than standardized test scores, including local performance assessments and informed teacher judgments.2 Nebraska's STARS system includes these elements and more. Nebraska's alternative to a single state test has been fully operational since the 2000-01 school year, and it is working. The STARS have lined up, and the assessment results are in. They have been tabulated, analyzed, and shared. Nebraska students, educators, school communities, and policy makers have data that support the underlying premise that teachers are professionally capable of having what Chris Gallagher has called a seat at the table.3 In this article, I wish to share our early results and bring readers up to date on Nebraska's journey to the STARS. An Impossible Dream? Local school districts are required to measure their students on Nebraska's rigorous content standards in grades 4, 8, and 11. But each district may select the assessment tools most appropriate for its students and classrooms. In general, school districts use a norm-referenced test in combination with locally designed criterion-referenced and classroom-based assessments to measure performance against the standards. In addition, every school district participates in a statewide writing assessment that is systematically administered and scored on a statewide basis. The bottom line is that educators in Nebraska school districts are required to do three things: identify clear learning targets (standards), locally measure those targets accurately and appropriately (assessment), and use the assessment data to improve instruction (accountability). Beginning in 2000, with the assistance of the 18 regional educational service units and in partnership with the Nebraska Department of Education, Nebraska educators began to design assessments and are continuing in these efforts through the present. Teachers throughout the state have spent hours in professional development focused on assessment literacy and on learning about developing high-quality assessments. As Richard Stiggins has pointed out, educators spend between one-third and one-half of their time in assessing student performance, but most have not been prepared to do so.4 In response, Nebraska has invested in its educators and their professional development. In the words of one Nebraska teacher, This process has forced us to learn how to accurately measure the student learning in our classrooms. We don't have to rely on our intuition anymore about whether or not our students are learning.5 In order for each of Nebraska's 537 (now 504) school districts to assess locally and to report student results on the rigorous state standards, it was necessary to ensure that each district's assessment system was sound. Therefore, with the assistance of the Buros Center for Testing at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, the state department of education established Six Quality Assessment Criteria to serve as guidelines for school districts to use in judging the quality of their assessment systems. …