Federal government to standardize graduation rate formula

U.S. to require states to use a single school dropout formula

New York Times April 1, 2008

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will announce today that she will take administrative action to ensure that all states use a standard formula for calculating graduation and drop-out rates for NCLB reporting. To date states have been able to use their own formulas to calculate the graduation rate, with many states using formulas that overstate the graduation rate.