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Governors Endorse a Standard Formula for Graduation Rates

Governors from 45 states agreed Sunday to adopt a common formula to calculate high school graduation rates, an initiative intended to help policy makers more accurately measure student success and identify academic programs that need improving.

The agreement is nonbinding, but as a series of recommendations, it would lead to a uniform accounting system to replace the patchwork of approaches currently used that the governors say often produces inaccurate or misleading information. It would also help states comply with the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind, which uses graduation rates as a measure of whether schools are meeting annual progress requirements.

The governors said the agreement would also lead to a common formula for dropout rates and eventually to a reassessment of high school courses to make them more rigorous. Results of a federal study released last week showed that average reading and math scores for 17-year-olds were unchanged from the 1970’s.

"This is just the first step," said Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat and chairman of the National Governors Association, which announced the agreement at its annual summer meeting here. "Right now, different states have different definitions. So how can we make valid comparisons? And if you can’t compare, how do we validate who has the best practices?"

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/education/18govs.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1121702856-OMeC+JVoO/rxRa0zLBs2nA

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