The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) Exhibitions Project of the early 1990s produced a range of work that continues to inform the practice of using exhibitions as a "360 degree" method of transforming teaching and learning, community connections, school design, and assessment. Among that work was this paper coupling the origins of exhibitions with an analysis of how they create outward accountability, providing evidence of what students know and are able to do, and inward accountability, holding schools responsible for planning backwards to create the systems that scaffold and support students as they prepare for graduation by exhibition. This article presents an excerpt from "Exhibitions: Facing Outward, Pointing Inward" which focuses on the motivation for integrating exhibitions into all aspects of Essential school practice. Its take on how the strategy of public demonstration of mastery via exhibitions is more meaningful, authentic and persuasive than data yielded by the "quick instruments" encouraged by policymakers remains startlingly relevant.