Minimal competency testing is the most recent evolution of the accountability movement and of the competency based education movement. It focuses on the basic academic skills of reading, writing, and arithemtic. It presumes the state will set educational objectives, and that the local school district will conduct its program so that the objectives will be achieved. It emphasizes minimal objectives for grade promotion or high school graduation. It supposes that a statewide test will determine whether the objectives are attained. It assumes that scientific management of the schools will not only provide equal distribution of opportunities and resources to all children but will also result in all children learning to read, write, and do arithmetic. Growing bureaucratization and centralization in education are the result of efforts by policymakers to solve educational problems. The author concludes that: (1) higher levels of government should be concerned with promoting equality of educational opportunity; (2) the standards and operation of schools should be the responsibility of local boards of education; and (3) minimal competency testing will not solve the problem of the minority of teachers who fail to teach and the minority of students who fail to learn. (CTM)