Discussed are the procedures implemented in the Orleans Parish Schools in response to the Louisiana state-mandated promotional testing program (Act 750, 1979), and concerns regarding its value. Recent findings raise fundamental questions about whether an exclusively skills-focused curriculum in the early years provides the needed grounding in context learning and conceptual analysis for skills to be productively applied as children grow older. Absorption with the promotional aspects of the Basic Skills Test may overly focus attention on promotional testing causing the comprehensive curriculum to give way to a curriculum of 30 testable objectives. Because state funds granted for remediation are to be used only for students who fail the promotional tests, summer programs must be established, thus causing a duplication of already existent remedial programs, as well as planning and logistical time constraints. No dollar figure has been proposed for the cost of this mandated effort in staff and teacher time or for the problems of test administration. The discussion concludes by urging testing proponents to consider whether the costs involved with such testing override the benefits and to keep alert to the need to make programmatic adjustments as they become necessary. (Author/PN)