California's higher education officials have teamed up with the public schools to create the state's first proposal for academic standards for high school students.

The preliminary proposal, which was unveiled last month, is a cooperative effort to address the skyrocketing necessity for remedial education for students entering the state's community colleges and universities. California Community College System Chancellor Tom Nussbaum joined leaders of the state's two university systems and state schools chief Delaine Eastin in releasing the proposal for increasing high school graduation requirements in mathematics and English at a meeting of the California State University board of trustees.

"We all share a common problem: Our children are not achieving at a high enough level," Eastin, the state superintendent of public instruction, said in an interview. "Not having standards allows all manner of things to pass as education."

The proposal was developed by the California Education Round Table, a group of educators that includes Nussbaum, Eastin, California State University Chancellor Barry Munitz, University of California President Richard Atkinson, and representatives of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities and the California Postsecondary Education Commission.

Community college officials do not know what percentage of the 1.4 million students in the state's 106 community colleges require remedial education. But in 1993, the system tallied almost 500,000 enrollments for basic skills courses--a number that includes students enrolled in several remedial classes.

Although many are older students without recent formal schooling, many others are entering directly from high school or within a few years of graduation. Some community colleges in the state claim more than 80 percent of their students are not prepared for college courses.

Earning good grades and performing well on college-entrance exams qualifies the top one-third of the state's graduates for admission to the California State University system. Yet almost half of those incoming freshman are not prepared for college courses and are routed first into remedial programs.