U.S. to Require States to Use a Single School Dropout Formula (Stage 4)

This article from The New York Times is about a lady, Margaret Spellings, who wants to require all states to use one federal formula to calculate graduation and dropout rates. This is a big deal because it’s going to affect every high school in this country. I'm on her side when it comes to this issue. I believe she has a strong point and it's for a good cause. This will give us a more reliable formula to go by. Instead of states making their own formula, so we have a dozen different formulas in the United States, we will only have one. There are some states not taking everything into consideration when it comes to figuring out the dropout rate, therefore they are getting a lower dropout rate than what there really is, which is only hurting us. We need to know exactly what the dropout rate is so we can try and correct it. Our country can't afford to have some high schools with a 70% dropout rate. Something needs to be done to fix this problem and I believe Ms. Spelling’s federal formula is a good start. By lowering our dropout rate we will become more successful by having more people in high paying jobs and less in lower paying jobs.

U.S. to Require States to Use a Single School Dropout Formula