A description is provided of the work of the Student Assessment Task Force, which was charged by the Washington State Student Services Commission Executive Board to "provide leadership to the state system on the topic of assessment." Following background information on the charge of the task force and a statement of its objectives and philosophy, the report addresses the following issues: (1) the purposes and outcomes of assessment; (2) the percentage of community college students entering the system with basic skills deficiencies (50%-70% for English, 46%-66% for reading, and 53%-85% for mathematics); (3) components of model assessment programs currently in existence in the Washington community colleges (e.g., integration of assessment, advising/orientation and registration, automated systems for scoring and data collection, trained test administrators, no fee or low fee for students, techniques aimed at anxiety reduction, and self-assessment of students' self-concept and motivation); (4) cooperative efforts made by faculty and student services staff members to improve assessment services; (5) research or follow-up analysis; (6) access to the data generated by assessment; (7) the educational and/or experiential preparation needed by a coordinator of assessment; (8) criteria for selecting assessment instruments; and (9) the funding issues raised by survey data. The report concludes with task force recommendations, a report summary, a list of survey respondents and contact people, and a bibliography. (LAL)