Intended to help Arkansas schools implement its 1980 State Basic Skills Improvement Plan, this booklet identifies basic skills to be measured by the state and makes suggestions for incorporating these skills into the curriculum. The first section explains the Educational Assessment Act of 1979 establishing a statewide basic skills assessment program. The next two sections present the implications of this act for schools and statewide goals of the Basic Skills Improvement Plan. In the next section "quality control" in a school is discussed; that is, determining the match between identified learning objectives, curriculum, and student achievement. The development of instructional objectives by Arkansas educators and published as the "Basic Educational Skills" book is described in the next section. The largest section of the book lists these instructional objectives in math, reading, and language arts in grades 4-9 and lists how each is measured by the standardized test chosen to assess achievement. How to analyze curriculum content to see if learning objectives are being taught is presented in the next section. This is followed by a section on how to make sure classroom learning activities directly relate to the objectives, including a sample lesson plan. A concluding section discusses the achievement of quality control. (Author/JM)