This paper traces the evolution of curriculum reform in Mississippi from a state level, norm-referenced accountability system to a performance-based, centralized accreditation system that integrates instructional management requirements into improvement standards. Accountability legislation has primarily been concerned with quality of student improvement and requires that curricular change bring about performance improvement. With the 1975 accountability law, Mississippi's department of education began building a statewide management system through a norm-referenced testing program. The department prepared guidelines for local accountability programs, but because curricular content varied, districts retained their autonomous character, in opposition to a small, relatively weak education department. The Education Reform Act of 1982 introduced a criterion-referenced program based on basic skills and a performance-based accreditation system, and the act abolished prior curricular requirements. Accreditation became the state's mechanism for implementing change. The education department identified principles of instructional accountability, including course definition through a set of objectives encompassing state-mandated content and adoption of objectives by local boards as basic curriculum requirements. In 1985-86, reforms identified basic skill areas and required that local administrators be held accountable for instructional management systems. Mississippi's programs thereby became part of a centralized management system over an 11-year period. (CJH)