More than 172,000 high school juniors in California ---- including more than 4,200 in North San Diego and Southwest Riverside counties ---- are still failing the state test that could keep them from graduating next year, and the State Board of Education will begin today to try to figure out whether at least some of those students should be let off the hook and given a diploma.

Under a state law passed in 2000, all public school students in the Class of 2004 ---- next year's seniors ---- must pass the California High School Exit Exam to receive diplomas. The test is designed to measure basic English and math skills taught in eighth through 10th grades.

But as next year's seniors approach their last few chances at the test, only about six out of 10 California teens have passed at least one section of the test. Faced with thousands of failing students, the Sacramento-based state board has to make a decision this summer about the future of the class of 2004.

Should the board let the law stand and the teens fail to graduate?

Should it delay the test's consequences for a few years in hopes that pass rates will increase?

Or should the board change the way the test is scored so that more students pass?

These are the questions the state board will take up today in Sacramento. While the 11-member board could come up with some answers this week, members probably will not take a final vote on the fate of the exam until July, said board spokesman Phil Garcia.

"The deadline for any decisions on the exam is August 1," Garcia said. "So the board has a little time to look at its options."

Those options include pushing the exam requirement from the Class of 2004 to a later class of seniors. The Legislature, which creates the laws that the state school board enforces, is already pushing for a bill that would target the Class of 2006 instead of the Class of 2004 as the first group of students to have to pass the exam to graduate.

Another option before the board involves fiddling with the test's scoring system to raise passing rates. Currently, students must earn a score of at least 350 on each of the test's two sections to pass. On the English section, a score of 350 means a student answered about 60 percent of questions correctly. On the Math section, a 350 means a student got about 55 percent of the questions right.

A new scoring system under consideration would allow a student to pass with a total score of 700, even if his or her score drops below 350 on either section. For example, a student with a score of 325 on the math section could pass the exit exam if he or she earned a 375 or higher on the English section, making the total score 700.

The scoring switch would allow students who excel on one section of the test to pass the exit exam even if their scores are weak on the remaining section. Instead of answering 55 percent of the math questions correctly, students would be allowed to pass with just 40 percent of the section correct, as long as his or her score on the English section made up the difference.

Under such a system, about 71 percent of California students would be considered passing, up from about 60 percent, according to the California Department of Education.

But the department "has some concerns" about allowing students to pass with a combined score of 700, said state testing chief Phil Spears.

Spears wouldn't comment on what he thought the board should do. But an education department recommendation included in the board's agenda says a student who answers 40 percent of the math section correctly probably hasn't mastered enough math to graduate.

"It is really up to the board to decide what is acceptable and what's not," Spears said.

State legislators, who passed the original exit exam law and can change it at will, may decide to delay the test's consequences regardless of the state board's decision. A bill to make the class of 2006 --- not the class of 2004 ---- the first students required to pass the exit exam has been approved by the California Assembly and will be taken up by the Senate in the next few months.

If that bill becomes law before Aug. 1, the school board will not have the power to require the class of 2004 to pass the exit exam. "The timing is odd," Garcia said. "But we do know that something will be decided about the exam, and it will be decided this summer."