HARRISBURG — Strong opposition stalled a proposal that would require Pennsylvania high school students to pass a battery of tests before they can graduate.

Instead, Gov. Ed Rendell's administration and state lawmakers settled on a compromise that would make the tests optional for now.

Under a public school code bill that passed the Legislature last week, the State Board of Education's effort to create new rules establishing 10 subject-specific final exams for graduating high school students would be halted for the 2008-09 school year.

Today, Rendell is expected to sign the bill, passed along with the state budget, which also outlines how an unprecedented $274 million state subsidy increase will be distributed among the state's 501 school districts.

The budget calls for increasing annual spending on state assessment tests by more than 70 percent to $54 million. Some of the money will go toward developing graduation tests that school districts can use voluntarily beginning in the 2009-10 school year, Education Department spokeswoman Sheila Ballen said Monday.

Making the tests voluntary was important to lawmakers, given the opposition they were hearing from their constituents, said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi.

Rendell had originally requested $15 million for developing the tests, but Ballen could not specify how much the department planned to spend on them in the 2008-09 school year. The additional assessment money also would be spent on a K-12 "model curriculum" for the subjects to be tested and on diagnostic tools for teachers to monitor their students' academic progress, she said.

Supporters of the proposed regulations said they would ensure all students meet the state's academic standards and are ready for college and careers. To graduate, students would have to pass six tests covering English, math, science, and social studies, starting with the class of 2014.