Washington's recently enacted Student Learning Objectives Law demands that local districts implement a program designed to provide statewide educational accountability. The law ignores the complexity of such an implementation, providing no funding, no rewards for success, no assistance or training in developing implementation techniques, and a very small role in the objective-setting process for anyone at the local level. Comparison of Washington's plan with similar plans already in use in other states indicates a likelihood of failure. While the law was apparently intended to foster a reconsideration of the direction of education, its actual result will probably be to reduce educators' goals to the realization of legislatively mandated standards. A number of suggestions for improving the program conclude the paper. (Author/PGD)