State legislation under consideration today would require all high school seniors to pass classes needed for state university admission - a feat just one in three Orange County graduates accomplished last year.

The rule would kick in with the Class of 2011 - this year's fifth-graders - to give schools time to put in tougher courses, train teachers and buy books.

The Senate Education Committee is set today to consider Senate Bill 1795, part of a plan by state Superintendent Jack O'Connell to improve high- school performance. About 40 percent of high schools last year met state test-score goals.

"If we fail to provide access to challenging curriculum for all of our students, then we have clearly shortchanged the futures of thousands of our kids," O'Connell said.

Some local educators say the plan is unrealistic; some students think it is too tough. Other students at Valencia High in Placentia, however, said the rule could help them get the courses they need before it is too late to qualify for state college admission.

Valencia senior Jenny Tran, 17, said she found out two weeks ago that she is one science course short of qualifying for California State University, Fullerton.

Universities require students to pass at least two laboratory science courses, including biology, chemistry or physics. College preparation also includes multiple years of English, math, social studies, foreign language and physical education.

The bill would give districts incentives to mandate the college-prep courses earlier. Districts would be allowed to spend money now earmarked for specific programs on whatever they choose.

But some Orange County educators doubt the plan will ever be practical, given problems with recent attempts to ratchet up graduation requirements.

This year's senior class was supposed to be the first required to pass an exit exam and complete Algebra I to graduate. But the state delayed the exit exam for two years. And the state is allowing some districts to waive the Algebra I rule for a year. Previous attempts to require college-prep courses failed.

Superintendent Dean Waldfogel of Irvine Unified - one of the county's highest-performing districts - said he told O'Connell that the goal is unreachable because not all students are university bound.

"As noble as the idea is, there's not a chance that all of our students could meet (course) requirements. It wouldn't matter how much money they threw our way or how early we start students on that path," Waldfogel said. "Would it be a grand thing? ... Absolutely. It would also be a grand thing if they all could play tennis or golf at the professional level."

School districts are trying to improve their university- bound rates - which ranged from 16.5 percent in Santa Ana to 72.3 percent in Newport-Mesa last school year. Capistrano Unified, for example, runs a college- and career- preparation center, and holds seminars for elementary students and their families to help them prepare for college.

Valencia High is starting a club for students who will be the first in their families to go to college. The school runs a program to help middle-of- the-road students prepare for college - Advancement Via Individual Determi nation, or AVID. But AVID reaches just 85 students at Valencia, which enrolls 2,343 students.

Sophomore Jonathan Nuñez, 16, said he didn't know there was school after high school when he was nominated for the AVID program in seventh grade.

Nuñez's parents, from Mexico, made it through junior high. Nuñez's older brother, a senior, plans to become a mechanic. So Nuñez agrees with the plan to make all students take college-prep courses.

"It gives them the feeling of what they might do," Nuñez said.