This 20-minute tape cassette on performance criteria is one of a series designed to inspire inservice school personnel and to provide them with basic information about school innovation. Allen develops the theme that performance criteria give teachers and students precise notions of what should be learned and of when learning has occurred. The latter is seen as freeing the teaching from the time criterion, i.e., the arbitrary June deadline on learning. Allen cautions that performance criteria should not be used as a total approach by a school since there are goals of learning which cannot be so easily measured (such as appreciation of literature). However, Allen feels that using performance criteria for parts of a course or unit means that a student does not have to repeat material he has already learned, that a student who needs to review may do so individually with self-instructional materials, and that any student who has met one criterion should be rewarded with a choice of constructive alternatives and not with another criterion. (LP)