NGA Gauges Progress on Graduation Formula

Charleston, S.C.

A year after the nation’s 50 governors agreed to abide by a single formula for calculating graduation rates, two states have backed out of the pledge, and more are years away from meeting the new standard.

That’s according to a progress report prepared by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and released during the NGA’s annual meeting, held here earlier this month. The governors of the 50 states and Puerto Rico last year signed the “Graduation Counts Compact,” promising to use a standard formula for measuring the rate of students’ high school completion. ( "Efforts Seek Better Data on Graduates," July 27, 2005.)

But the center’s researchers found that North Dakota and South Dakota don’t plan to use the method, which measures the number of students who enter 9th grade against the number who graduate with a high school...