Students struggling with advanced algebra test

Algebra has been in the news a lot lately. (Relatively speaking anyway) A couple months ago California added an algebra requirement for graduation from high school and last month Washington added an algebra II requirement.

For the record I support an algebra requirement in high school but I worry about it's implementation when I see things like this:

Students across the country struggled with advanced algebra on a first-of-its-kind test in that subject, according to a report to be released this week by Achieve, the nonprofit Washington organization that helped coordinate the exam.

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Achieve is part of the American Diploma Project Network , an effort among two-thirds of the nation’s states to align standards, tests, and graduation requirements. Achieve officials in 2005 began working with states to devise a test in advanced algebra, or Algebra 2.

My fear is that the test(s) will be dumbed down to be meaningless and that does no one any good.

As a side note I met a Swedish high school student the other day who told me that in her school system calculus is required and she is taking linear algebra as her senior math elective. I have no way of verifying that but she had no reason to lie, the only reason we were even talking was I had happened to pick up a Swedish travel guide to browse through at Half Price Books and I was just asking questions after she mentioned she was from Sweden.