The Kentucky Education Reform Act legislated by the 1990 General Assembly created a high-stakes school performance accountability system to monitor the progress of implementation. One major component of the accountability system is a schedule of consequences designed to reward those schools making sufficient progress in improving student performance and to sanction schools that maintained current achievement levels or declined. The cognitive and non-cognitive components of the assessment system are described, and the impact is discussed from a local district perspective. The following system components are highlighted: (1) the use of assessment results to make individual decisions about students; (2) the scoring rule applied to student performance; (3) the impact of performance events; (4) teacher workload; (5) differential student achievement growth; and (6) the influence on staff development. Only time will tell if the mandates of the Kentucky Education Reform Act will produce a better educated product of the public schools. Initial activities tend to focus on a quick fix, the greatest impact on performance in the most efficient manner. It is likely that long-term professional development activities will be those that are characterized by what truly makes a difference in the classroom. (SLD)