ABSTRACT
Competency testing serves the lowest common denominator of education, the irreducible core. If education is only to fit the student for daily life, by equipping him with certain basic skills, then competency testing is a step in the right direction. A test puts pressure on teachers and students to make sure the tested skills are mastered, especially when diploma sanction is involved. In the competency view, one goal of education is to equip the student with at least certain minimum skills. The diploma is his mark of having acquired those skills. Such is an educator's picture of the situation. Mechanisms for awarding credentials, including competency tests, are necessarily insensitive to people's individual strengths and weaknesses. There are new lines of communication between the states and the localities within them and new forms of collaboration on educational issues among agencies at different governmental levels.
