The Washington Post – Emma Brown
“The U.S. high school dropout rate has fallen in recent years, with the number of dropouts declining from 1 million in 2008 to about 750,000 in 2012, according to a new study to be released Tuesday. The number of “dropout factories” — high schools in which fewer than 60 percent of freshmen graduate in four years — declined significantly during the same period, according to the study by a coalition of education groups. “Clear progress is being made,” said Bob Wise, a former West Virginia governor who heads the Alliance for Excellent Education, one of the organizations that published the study. “It’s not a total success yet. We shouldn’t take a victory lap. But we can at least start warming up.” The new dropout data is not surprising because the nation’s high school graduation rate has been steadily rising. Eighty-one percent of the Class of 2013 graduated on time, the highest since states began calculating graduation rates in a uniform way in 2010.”(more)