The plan to require Pennsylvania high school students to pass graduation competency exams will be the hot topic at a state Senate Education Committee hearing in Harrisburg today,

Much of today's testimony, including that of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and the Pennsylvania State Education Association, is expected to be negative toward the state Board of Education's plan to require high school students to pass certain tests to graduate, beginning with the class of 2014.

The PSEA yesterday issued a release stating that 22 statewide organizations oppose the plan and 130 school boards have passed resolutions against it. Critics argue it's unfair to allow the tests alone to prevent graduation and that the state is taking away local control.

"We do not believe it will have the desired consequences," said PSEA President James Testerman.

But Joan Benso, president and chief executive officer of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, today will argue that it's unfair to graduate students who aren't prepared.

"That has to stop," she said, noting the plan provides remedial help so students can catch up.

The proposal calls for students to pass six of 10 "graduation competency assessments" in math, language arts, social studies and science; the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests; Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams; or a local assessment that independent evaluators certify is equivalent to the graduation competency assessments.

School districts can choose which of the options, or combination of options, they will accept.

On Saturday, the proposed regulations will be published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, kicking off a 30-day period of public comment to the state board. The state board has up to two years from the date of publication to vote again.

Jim Buckheit, executive director of the state board, said the exams are a hot button issue and have stirred a great amount of debate.

So far, he said, the state board has received letters of opposition from 106 of the state's 501 school districts; however, the Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Reading and Chester-Upland districts and a contingent of 14 school superintendents in the north-central part of the state favor the proposal.

In the analysis form submitted to the state Independent Regulatory Review Commission, the state board calls the exams "essential" for students' post-high school success.

Without such a regulation, it states, schools would be allowed "to award diplomas to students not meeting the state academic standards and make them ill-prepared to succeed in college and work as well as make them less able to contribute to a productive society."

Nationwide, 23 states are requiring the class of 2008 to pass certain tests to graduate from high school, according to John Robert Warren, associate sociology professor at the University of Minnesota, who has collaborated on several studies on the effects of high school exit exams.