For more than fifteen years the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has made a concerted effort to produce standards in school mathematics. Beginning in 1980 with An Agenda for Action: Recommendations for School Mathematics for the 1980s, the Council has led a natural progression through Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics and Professional standards for Teaching Mathematics to the present Assessment Standards for School Mathematics. With the publication of this last volume in the trilogy, the Council has stated clearly what its members, including classroom teachers, supervisors, and college proesssors, value in curriculum, teaching, adn assessment. Thus, it extends the vision of a significant mathematics education for every child.

The Council acknowledges with gratitude the responses of more than two thousand colleagues who thoughtfully reviewed the initial draft. We appreciate greatly the outstanding leadership of Thomas A. Romberg, who chaired the Commission on the Assessment Standards and who effectively guided the final writing processs through revisions based on those responses. We are particularly grateful to the working groups, their leaders, and the writers, who deserve great credit for their efforts in translating the concerns and suggestions into reality and who created a document that is user-friendly and an excellent complement to the earlier volumes.

We appreciate the support and contribution of the headquarters staff and particularly Executive Director James Gates, who guided the process and who himself has been involved from the beginning. To each person who had a hand in developing this document we give our heart-felt thanks.