although it has made progress on many fronts and has a high standing on international assessments there is a general appreciation that the system must strive for the next level although the nature of that level has not yet been specified one of the themes of this report is how evaluation and assessment broadly conceived can support the attainment of whatever educational goals are decided upon the core logic of criterionreferenced evaluation and assessment systems rests upon the alignment of goals for student learning specific content for learning pedagogical approaches and evaluation and assessment approaches oecd in the netherlands building such alignment is challenging given the lack of a national agreement on specific educational priorities and standards