A brief paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual meeting (April 1977) describes the development, and analysis of the Instructional Management System (IMS) which is used in the Lansing elementary schools. The report is divided into three sections: a historical overview of the program, a description of IMS, and an assessment of the advantages, disadvantages, and outcomes as assessed by the teacher. In an effort to make the lowest achieving students successful, the teaching of 30,000 elementary students of diverse backgrounds and socioeconomic status in 56 schools was achieved by decentralization of decision making on a school-by-school basis, teacher participation, parental involvement, and implementation of IMS. These actions were mandated by Elementary Secondary Education Act, Title I funds used for the program. The implementation of the IMS includes 140 reading objectives and 150 math objectives which are representative of skills students in all schools should master. Accompanying each objective are pre-tests and post-tests. Additionally, record keeping cards for reading and math are utilized to plot pupil progress through the system. Advisory committees are comprised of teachers, administrators parents, and evaluators who review items, suggest time-saving testing techniques and effective management practices. The positive and negative results of the development and implementation of IMS are reported. The advantages of IMS are: immediate information on skill level, appropriate educational objectives, greater test reliability, and better communication between teachers and parents. The disadvantages enumerated by the teachers are: feelings of being pressured to achieve a certain number of objectives, and very little input into the development of the IMS components. Additionally, students are occasionally overtested; time required to master particular objectives is not equal; and collecting, recording, and analyzing data is too time consuming. In the IMS program, teacher confidence is increased and teacher morale is strengthened as a result of greater teacher participation. As a result of the success of this IMS program a system similar to it is being developed for the secondary level. (Author/JP)