The Southwest Regional Laboratory for Educational Research and Development (SWRL) is dedicated to the belief that individual differences among students do not stand in the way of universal quality instructional achievement in the nation's schools. Important steps towards the condition of universal instructionalized achievement are: (1) the explication of instructional proficiencies; (2) the frequent assessment of instructional proficiencies; and (3) the widespread sharing of the findings of proficiency assessment. SWRL believes that the development of the means to provide the availability of proficency assessment information is currently possible although as of yet a base of such information does not exist. Through research and development, formulated here as Achievement Monitoring in Schools (AIMS), SWRL has designed a program of instructionalized achievement monitoring that is cost-beneficial and time-and-resource feasible. AIMS can be justified through study of the following issues: (1) the issue of educational equity and the bases for insuring equitable education; (2) the issue concerning conservation of a teacher's instructional resources when sufficiently frequent proficiency occurs in a classroom equipped to accommodate AIMS; and (3) the issue of cost-attractive hardware and hardware-referenced inputs and outputs that are consonant with the objectives of achievement monitoring. The greatest obstacle to effective and equitable education are the absence of a comprehensive proficiency framework against which instructional status and progress can be assessed, and the absence of a system insuring that pertinent data be collected, retained, and shared. The AIMS program was conceived to provide this framework and data bank. (MM)