High school seniors in the class of 2006 will be the first class required to pass the California High School Exit Exam in order to graduate. Students once had to earn diplomas; today, we mostly hear of students being denied their diplomas because of requirements like the exit exam.

The presumption is that everyone is entitled to a diploma, regardless of performance. If educators want to serve the interest of students, they should consider why California needed such an exam in the first place. Irresponsible schools hand out passing grades to students who can barely read and do math, and teachers often feel pressured to give higher grades than students' work deserves.

As a minimum-skills test, the bar set by the exit exam is already low. Students are tested on seventh-grade math and 10th-grade English. They only have to answer slightly more than half of the questions right, and those who have not satisfied this requirement by the tenth grade are given five chances to retake the test.

In Riverside, about one-third of 2006 seniors have not tested proficient in the basic skills they need to graduate and compete in the real world. Statewide, 90,000 seniors are similarly deficient.

Unfortunately, we are already seeing misguided attempts to circumvent the spirit and purpose of the exit exam. Politicians and school districts are scrambling to devise certificates of completion based on alternative assessments that vary from school to school.

These efforts will allow students who have not mastered the basic skills to slip through instead of getting additional help. Accommodations made for special education students, such as allowing readers and calculators during the exam, invalidate the very standards that the exam seeks to evaluate.

More students are taking the exit exam seriously because they have been told there is no alternative to passing in order to graduate. Nearly 70,000 California students unable to demonstrate the skills needed to graduate by the 10th grade were able to do so by the end of the 11th grade. Without the pressure of the exit exam, many would not have received the extra help or been as motivated to make use of remedial programs.

We rightly hold schools, teachers and parents accountable for dismal performance. Students should also bear some responsibility for their work and for bettering their own future. The exit exam calls upon students to take such responsibility, and it will pay off.

Cornell University professor John H. Bishop found that students who grew up in states with minimum competency tests not only learned as much as 16 percent of a grade level more, but they were also 2 percent to 4 percent more likely to attend college. Such students earn about 9 percent more than their peers immediately after graduation.

The state of academic preparedness is grim, which is all the more reason that standards must remain high. Spurred on by both federal law and the need to boost graduation rates, more schools are coming up with more effective remedial programs.

The exit exam aids those schools by helping to identify struggling students earlier. Districts can help by aligning instruction and curricula to rigorous state standards because that's what the exam measures.

Lawmakers could help by implanting unique student identifiers for all of California's students.

Current assessment data lumps students together to provide a partial and often-inaccurate picture of how students are really doing, and the results are often of little help.

Test-score reports tend to focus on averages and growth at the school level, overlooking the needs of the individual student. Unique student identifiers would allow for approaches that gauge achievement by measuring the progress of each child from year to year.

These measures will help all students to walk at graduation in June 2006, and take the high road to get there.