It just doesn't add up. Some of the critics of Gov. Ed Rendell's plan to make students pass a series of tests before high school graduation are legislators who complain that public education isn't getting young people ready for the workplace.

Go figure.

It's been a year and a half since state Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak began making the rounds to sell Pennsylvania on the need to require more of its graduating seniors. While 26 states will be using such competency tests by 2012, Pennsylvania students may graduate as long as they've finished their course work, completed a senior project and passed their school district's assessment.

Claiming that up to 45 percent of the state's 2006 graduates did not display proficiency in standardized reading or math tests, Mr. Zahorchak and the governor have been campaigning for a series of Keystone Exams -- three in math, three in social studies, two in language arts and two in science -- that would measure students' basic knowledge. Students would have to pass at least six, and they would be given early enough to allow time for remediation in a particular subject.

Pennsylvania businesses, which complain routinely about the shocking state of unreadiness of many young job seekers, have lobbied not only for better education but also for tests to show whether students measure up before being launched into the work world. Last month 80 percent of those in the Pennsylvania Business Council who were polled at 400 businesses around the state said they backed a proposal for a series of graduation competency exams.

Their pleas have fallen on deaf ears in the General Assembly, particularly in the Senate, where the education committee last week approved a bill by Sen. Jane Orie, R-McCandless, to bar the Education Department from developing new graduation requirements without legislative approval. Lawmakers were angry that the Rendell administration signed a seven-year, $201 million contract last month with Data Recognition Corp. of Minnesota to develop graduation tests, curriculum and diagnostic tools.

While that may seem like an inordinate sum when state officials are trying to find a way to close a $3 billion budget deficit by the June 30 end of the fiscal year, the contract requires the state to spend only $8 million this year and $21 million in the next.

This subject is too important -- for students, for business, for Pennsylvania -- to become a political football. It's time for Gov. Rendell and the Legislature to seek common ground on fixing the graduation competency problem that threatens the entire state.

While pre-diploma tests are not a panacea, they would help to ensure that Pennsylvania graduates are leaving high school on a level playing field, with more skills and knowledge in common to get into the game.