More than 500 prospective community college graduates, including more than 100 at Hostos, were denied diplomas.

The participants would also agree to press for programs that would help failing students before they are held back or denied diplomas.

Within five years, students who fail to pass a state mathematics and science Regents exam will be denied diplomas.

Aides to the leaders of both chambers say they have heard widespread concerns that the new graduation requirements may deny diplomas to thousands of students.

"Are we willing at this point in time to deny diplomas?"

Last spring only 75 of New Jersey's 82,653 seniors were denied diplomas because they had repeatedly failed the exam.

And if a significant number of minority students are denied diplomas, the politics of standards-based reform could change in a hurry.

So if students are held back, required to attend summer school or denied diplomas largely because of a single test, many will be punished unfairly.

Likewise, denying diplomas to high school students who fail a standardized test may backfire.

By the state's own reckoning, that means as many as 92,000 students would have been denied diplomas in 2004.