Graduation

California's high school exit exam is keeping disproportionate numbers of girls and non-whites from graduating, even when they are just as capable as white boys, according to a study released Tuesday. It also found that the exam, which became a graduation requirement in 2007, has "had no positive effect on student achievement."

The graduating class didn't even fill the front row. Martwaunn Thornton -- who entered high school defiant and difficult -- fiddled with the gold tassel dangling from his mortarboard. Near him was Alfred Stern III, who arrived reading at the seventh-grade level two years ago fresh from Juvenile Hall. Augustine Magana, on his third high school, showed up to support his friends even though he didn't make the front row because he won't graduate until August.

Hollywood actor alumnus out. Rock musician alumnus in. UCLA announced Monday that Brad Delson, lead guitarist for the popular rock-rap band Linkin Park, will step in to replace movie star James Franco as commencement speaker at Friday's graduation ceremony for the College of Letters and Science.

When University of Notre Dame valedictorian E. Brennan Bollman learned she'd be sharing a stage at Sunday's commencement with President Obama, she was elated. "I am a strong supporter of President Obama because I think he lives the values of justice and working toward peace," the 22-year-old senior said Tuesday. "President Obama takes a lot of pro-life positions. I don't think that he is strongly pro-abortion."

Bill Cosby had heard about the tough-as-nails, uncompromising man tackling fraud and improving education throughout the Detroit's public schools, and wanted to help. So the 72-year-old actor, comedian and activist decided to lend the district his celebrity as Detroit tries to hold off plummeting enrollment amid a fiscal crisis that a few weeks ago spurred suggestions of a possible bankruptcy. "All around the United States of America -- in the cities and the counties -- our public education is suffering and has been suffering.

Gleaming new buildings in red, purple and mustard welcomed hundreds of families on Saturday as they gathered to celebrate the opening of the Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center, one of the first new high schools built on the Eastside in many years. The $106-million center, set to open next month, has two schools: a math and science school and a technology and engineering school. The campus brings relief to families that until recently had little choice but to enroll students at Roosevelt High School, an overcrowded campus with low graduation rates.

Javay Ross and Eva Correa chose Charles Drew University's medical school because they wanted to work with the people who live in South Los Angeles. But halfway through their four-year programs, the emergency rooms and inpatient units at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital closed. They and their classmates were sent to UCLA's hospitals, and some wondered if their academic futures were also in jeopardy.

For years Chase Abrams has lived a double life: By day a popular student at Sierra Canyon School who played football and enjoyed hanging out with friends, by night an intent student of film studies at Cal State Los Angeles who organized college film festivals and held his own intellectually and socially. Today, the energetic 18-year-old can finally take a breath.

Under mottled gray skies, Caltech students graduated Friday in a ceremony punctuated by a moment of silence for two of their colleagues who died in separate suicides in the weeks before commencement. Senior Jackson Ho-Leung Wang, a mechanical engineering student from Hong Kong, died in his dorm room less than 48 hours before he was to collect his diploma in front of Beckman Auditorium on the Pasadena campus, officials said.

Actor James Franco has won critical raves for his performances in films such as the 2008 stoner comedy "Pineapple Express" and the Oscar-nominated drama "Milk." But this spring, when he agreed to deliver a commencement speech at UCLA, Franco received a thumbs-down from many members of the student body. "[We] don't feel he is as esteemed as a commencement speaker of UCLA's caliber should be," said an editorial in the Daily Bruin.