Educational refinement is defined as attempts to improve education through incremental improvements in the existing structure, while educational reform refers to change in the structure itself. A strong move is underway to reform education in the United States. It is argued that the development of assessments in support of educational reform requires assessment designs that will be as different as the designs for reform. Assessments developed in support of educational refinement have been highly concerned with issues of reliability. In the design of assessments developed in support of educational reform, the consequential validity of each item becomes an overriding consideration, and the impact on instruction is more important than technical precision. Because teachers and students will have to be daily participants in the process of educational reform, they will have to become involved in assessments. A model for an assessment system to support educational reform is proposed for Kentucky. In this design, portfolios are the primary means by which students are evaluated and schools held accountable. To ensure that portfolios reflect actual learning, the state can institute testing programs to determine which schools require on-site auditing of the portfolio process. (SLD)