Discusses the political and legal issues in minimum competency testing. Indicates that local educational policymakers and administrators must resist further centralization and take action to devise their own programs. (JOW)

The trend toward competency-based education and competency testing is the work of legislators and politicians, not educators. Some of the latter express serious reservations about it. The minimum competency testing movement is a result of the effort to integrate minorities into the mainstream of society. (JOW)

Argues that educators and researchers should become more active in making the decisions that affect education, such as minimum competency testing. (FL)

Some of the major concerns regarding competency-based education (CBE) and ways of dealing with them are discussed. CBE is viewed as an opportunity for educators to work for real improvement in the teaching and learning process. (MP)

In setting performance standards for schoolchildren, the school system not only announces what students must know; it specifies what it presumes it can teach. Tests of competency should be merely a monitoring device to indicate whether the system is meeting its obligation to students. (Author)