The charge that minimum competency testing provides diagnosis without treatment is refuted. The movement has made no attempt to dictate course content or teaching methods; it leaves treatment decisions to individual teachers. Treatment can be defined only in relation to a problem. The problem, as minimum competency advocates implicitly define it, is that the community, especially teachers, has not supported the standards embodied in the tests. Teachers can support standards by devoting more time to teaching basic skills; evidence suggests that class time correlates strongly with basic skills mastery. Both advocates and critics of minimum competency testing are struggling with the problem of academic faulure. Research suggests that the client-therapist relationship is critical to success or failure in psychotherapy, not the method. It is hypothesized that the personal characteristics of teachers and students, the appropriateness of the match between them and the social milieu in which they operate is critical to basic skills mastery. Teachers and students should thus have the option to transfer from schools they did not or would not choose. (CP)