Skip to main content
By America Forward on Monday, March 24, 2008

This past week, The New York Times reported that many states use an inflated graduation rate for federal reporting requirements under the No Child Left Behind law and a different one at home. As a result, researchers say, federal figures obscure a dropout epidemic so severe that only about 70 percent of the one million American students who start ninth grade each year graduate four years later.

Many members of the America Forward Coalition are focused on stemming the dropout crisis, but none more so than the America ’s Promise Alliance whose top priority is improving high school completion rates—“the most important indicator that a young person is on the road to success.” For example, by 2010, the America’s Promise Alliance aims to catalyze and support leadership summits addressing the high school dropout crisis in all 50 states, as well as in the 50 cities that research shows have the greatest concentration of low-performing high schools. America’s Promise is not interested in merely supporting a series of one-day events around the country, but is keenly committed to supporting a national campaign to improve policy and practice so more young people graduate from high school ready for college, work and adult life. These summits are intended to:

  • Build a sense of urgency around the crisis;
  • Secure a commitment to action from leaders in all sectors; and to
  • Result in action plans that strengthen current efforts and initiate new strategic activity around measurable policy and program supports for young people.

Their first summit was held in Mississippi, on February 28th. To read more about that event, and what it meant to State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds (also profiled in The New York Times story), read Dr. Bounds’ blog account, “Destination Graduation summit brings hope, inspiration, action.”

Posted in Education