"I did not get my bachelor's degree until I was 42," Williams said. "Even though my parents always told me 'you can do whatever you want,' what that counselor said stayed with me."

Now working on her master's degree in divinity, Williams looks at her daughter, Lisa, and wonders if the public education system that lowered her expectations is not doing the same to Lisa's generation.

Like 76 percent of Delaware's African-American high school graduates this year, Lisa - an honor-roll student - is expected to receive a basic diploma from her school, Hodgson Vo-Tech, under the state's new three-tiered diploma system.

"I feel anger when I think about it, anger and frustration," Lisa said. "You work so hard all those years in school and in the end it comes down to that one test and the basic," she said.

"To me it says that somebody isn't doing their job. A student like me who's been on the honor roll goes and takes the test and gets a basic diploma," she said. "Are the teachers not doing their job or are they not giving the teachers the information so we can pass these tests?"

Lisa has taken the 10th-grade tests three times in an effort to raise her scores. And last year her mother hired a math tutor from a private tutoring firm. That helped Lisa raise her score but not enough to reach the state standard and receive the standard diploma.

So this year, she took a fourth year of math for extra credit and hopes to raise her math score during her third try at the tests.

Which diploma a graduate receives depends on his or her diploma index, a calculation that includes scores on math, writing and English language arts tests.

But Lisa won't know until late May, when the latest test scores will be announced, whether hers are high enough to propel her from a basic to a standard diploma.

Lisa's friend, Keisha Cobb, a senior at William Penn High School in the Colonial School District, is less angry but also more pointed about a school system in which most black, Hispanic and low-income graduates end up with the lowest of three high school diplomas.

Keisha took the tests in 10th grade and again in 11th grade, trying to raise her scores, but, unlike Lisa, didn't try a third time.

"I was discouraged," Keisha said. "I stopped taking it because every time I took it I got the same scores back."

Keisha is uncertain about what she wants to do after graduation. She may go to college, but not until next spring.

Lisa, on the other hand, has her plans laid out: to begin studying for her registered nursing degree. Last week she was in line at Delaware Technical & Community College for registration. She was relieved to learn that colleges aren't asking Delaware students which of the three diplomas they're receiving.

The two young women said their high school teachers, in an apparent attempt to motivate students, were always telling them that a basic diploma just meant students had showed up for school, that it wouldn't allow them to get a job or go to college.

Even if such statements prove unfounded, the system may lead to cynicism.

"It takes a toll on you," Lisa said. "Because you're in school all those years and you are getting a basic diploma. You say, 'Why do I bother to do good in school?' "

Williams is deeply disappointed for her daughter, especially in light of her own experience with the high school counselor so many years ago.

"That's why I always tried to instill in Lisa, don't let people dictate how your future's going to turn out," Carolyn Williams said. "The diploma's sending a negative message. It's telling them that's all you get.

"What makes it so bad is that Lisa's always been a good child. I never had to make her go to school. She's always liked school. I never had to tell her to do her homework. She's always worked hard at school."