This manual is intended to provide Illinois school districts with guidance in developing learning assessment plans and using testing materials as part of the school improvement program mandated by the 1985 educational reform legislation for Illinois. Designed primarily to be a series of "how to" booklets, the manual is divided into six major sections: (1) Introduction and Overview (how to read this report, legislative initiative for school improvement, background of the Bureau County Project and Cooperative, and objectives of the project); (2) Local Development of Objective-Directed Instruction and Development (how to operationalize a learning assessment plan for a cooperative of school districts); (3) People, Software, and Hardware (how to and what to acquire as hardware and software); (4) Test Scoring from the Software User's Perspective (how to scan, score, and generate reports); (5) Assessment Results and School Improvement (how to interpret and utilize the assessment results); and (6) Conclusion (brief comments on the experiences of Bureau County during the initial phases of the project and on alternatives to various procedures described in the model). It is noted that all of the chapters focus on how to do all of the above in an integrated manner with maximum efficiency, minimum headaches, and modest expenditures. The text is supplemented by figures and illustrations, and a 6-item bibliography and an index are provided. (EW)