To meet several pre-evaluation goals of the national Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA) Evaluation study, the following activities that were undertaken are described: selection of an achievement measure; a pretest of this measure to assess student needs in schools eligible to receive funds under the Act (schools with a minority enrollment of 50 percent or more); an important research effort directed toward possible ethnic and/or cultural bias in the measures; and the establishment of test norms to aid in the interpretation of student and school performance relative to the appropriate sub-population. California Achievement Test (CAT-70) Levels 2 and 3 subtests measuring Reading Comprehension, Mathematics Computations, and Mathematics Concepts along with a questionnaire describing student background were administered to a nationally representative sample of ESAA-eligible students. A descriptive analysis of the resulting data is provided and the research conducted to investigate possible bias in the selected measures is documented. Appropriate measures of the debiased scales and the implications of their use are discussed. Finally, methodology employed for scaling the tests for use in interpreting performance within the ESAA-eligible population is presented. (RC)