  Pre-main sequence evolutionary theory is not well-calibrated to observations.
With care, the observed quantities can be converted into effective temperature
and luminosity (i.e. the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram) which the theoretical
calculations also predict as a function of stellar mass and age. For a sample
of nearby young stellar clusters and associations ranging in age from <1 Myr to
>100 Myr, we have tested the loci of luminosity as a function of effective
temperature against various sets of predicted pre-main sequence isochrones. As
we found in Hillenbrand & White (2004) which tested stellar masses, here for
the stellar ages there are two conclusions: some evolutionary calculations fare
better than others in reproducing the empirical sequences, and systematic
differences between all pre-main sequence evolutionary calculations and the
data are apparent. We also simulate hypothetical clusters of varying star
formation history and compare the resulting HR diagram predictions to observed
clusters. Our efforts are directed towards quantitative assessment of
**apparent** luminosity spreads in star forming regions and young clusters,
which are often erroneously interpreted as **true** luminosity spreads
indicative of **true** age spreads.
