Since public education began in Canada 150 years ago, assessment has identified and ranked students using tests, essays, and quizzes. This limited role for assessment has broadened over the past twenty years for a number of reasons: First, the goals of education in general, and social studies in particular, have greatly expanded as we attempt to help our children acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours required for living in the twenty-first century. As social studies educator Joseph Kirman argues, social studies is not about the accumulation of selected facts for later recall but should aim to: