Diploma

A decade after the state began putting in place a more rigorous standard for getting a high school diploma, only 2 percent or less of the senior class will not be walking across the stage because they failed to pass the requirement, which is in its first year. State education officials said yesterday that the latest data show about 1,275 students out of a class of 54,000 probably won't graduate in June because they haven't passed the four subject tests or done projects to make up for their lack of knowledge in those subjects.

Maryland isn't the first state to have second thoughts about denying diplomas to thousands of high school kids who can't pass state tests. As the graduation deadline grew near, Washington state delayed requiring its math exam. Utah dropped the testing requirement altogether. In Massachusetts, the teachers union mounted an ad campaign against the tests - though the state held firm. And in California, parents got angry and filed a class action suit. Students still have to pass the tests to get a diploma, but they can stay in high school for up to six years if that's what it takes.

... With just two years to go until new state tests could deny diplomas to thousands of students, grass-roots opposition to Maryland's High School Assessments is growing. Members of the Class of 2009 have been warned for several years that they will not graduate unless they pass the state exams in algebra, English, American government and biology. But a blue-ribbon panel in Prince George's County is questioning whether four tests should decide a student's future - and whether the resources are there to ensure that students have qualified teachers and time to catch up if they fail.

To get a high school diploma, Maryland students would have to pass the toughest battery of tests ever administered statewide under a proposal being considered by the state school board.State Board of Education members got their first glimpse yesterday of a report that will form the basis for "performance-based education" tests, expected to begin with ninth-graders in 1996.But some board members warned that such tests likely would force some students who fall behind to spend five years in high school and raise the dropout rate in a state where more than 20 percent of those who start high school don't finish.

Daniel J. Muffoletto, a World War II veteran who served in the Army's 10th Mountain Division, recently received his high school diploma under the provisions of a new state law. Muffoletto, 78, and his wife, Dorothy, live in Forest Hill. He attended Baltimore schools through high school at Boys' Vocational School, at Howard and Centre streets. Under a law passed in April, Muffoletto became eligible to receive his high school diploma if he had completed two years of academics and had a year of experience in the auto garage at the Boys' Vocational School.

Too distracted by a desire to follow his father and brother into military service during World War II, John "Joe" Fisher admits he often skipped school as a teenager and wasn't much interested when he did attend class. In 1945, Fisher was 16 and had completed the seventh grade at what is now Randallstown High when his mother, Evelyn, agreed to sign papers that would allow him to enlist in the U.S. Navy -- a year before he would be old enough to enlist on his own. "I wouldn't stay in school," he said last week while he leafed through a manila folder filled with military memories, including photos showing him with a dozen fellow recruits in an engineer school battalion.

Maryland's powerful associations of school chiefs and boards of education have given a cold shoulder to state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick's proposal for a second-tier "local" diploma to be awarded to students who can't quite make the grade on the new high school achievement tests. The Public School Superintendents Association of Maryland has overwhelmingly recommended that the state retain the single diploma. But the group also supports a change that would allow students to graduate by achieving a combined, or composite, score on the tests in algebra, biology, English and government, rather than having to pass all four tests.

FATHER'S DAY riddle: How could father and daughter receive high school diplomas on the same stage at the same commencement, never having gone to class? It happened Wednesday evening in the auditorium of Lindale Middle School in Linthicum. First across the graduation stage came Joseph E. Stankiewicz, 44, followed by his daughter, Michelle Lynn Stankiewicz, who turns 24 tomorrow. They were among 69 graduates of the Anne Arundel External High School Diploma Program, a state-sanctioned alternative to traditional high school that allows adults' life experiences to count toward graduation.

State school officials proposed alternative routes to the high school diploma yesterday, compromises that would make it possible for students to graduate without passing all four examinations of the Maryland High School Assessment. Under the plan outlined by state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, students could earn a second-tier diploma by passing three of the four tests. Students with disabilities would not have to pass the state exams in government, English, algebra and biology, though they would have to take the tests.

Now that Robert J. Harwood Jr. has been convicted of murdering a friend on campus, Johns Hopkins University officials are moving ahead with disciplinary action that could deprive him of the diploma he claims he has earned.The university sent a letter yesterday informing Harwood that he could be expelled for violations of the student conduct code. But Harwood, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court, has vowed to sue to get the diploma that university officials are standing firm on withholding.