North Carolina's latest report on dropouts held this welcome news: The rate of dropouts declined last year to its lowest rate ever recorded - 4.27 percent...The nonpartisan Alliance for Excellent Education last year calculated the impact of dropouts on the Charlotte region and noted these economic costs: $36 million in lost earnings per year, $25 million in potential spending that businesses won't see, $5 million in potential tax revenues that won't be collected. 

If anyone has a few hours, the new national standards are out and available for review. (I have only glanced at them, but there is a great emphasis on literacy and writing in the early grades.)...Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, said, “Zip codes might be great for sorting mail, but they’re no way to educate America’s future workforce.

Congress can insert "Buy American" clauses into every piece of pork and stimulus package that flows from its bureaucratic ballpoints, but if U.S. companies don't have the talent available to develop and produce the innovations America needs to remain a technological leader, laws don't mean much...Texas' dropout rates are disturbingly high. Alliance for Excellent Education figures for North Texas, an area that includes Dallas, Tarrant and 12 surrounding counties, show that 32 percent of students didn't graduate from high school in four years and with a regular diploma.

Once again the Democrat majority that controls the Alabama State Legislature did what they so often do -- fail the parents and children of Alabama...Other studies give more evidence of the potential benefit of closing the achievement gap and lowering the dropout rate. A report from the Alliance for Excellent Education found that the lost lifetime earnings for the 25,000 Alabama students who did not graduate from high school in 2009 totals over $6.5 billion and will add $254 million to the state's health care costs.

Check out this story from USA Today about how teenagers are changing their senior year of high school. This is something that interests me, and I hope it interests you as well...And the Alliance for Excellent Education, which advocates better high school policy, released its position on what the feds should think about when they reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act.

On Feb. 25, representatives of the National Guard Youth Challenge Program, an initiative that provides structure and discipline to young adults who’ve dropped out of high school, held a roundtable discussion on Capitol Hill to discuss the issues plaguing high school students...According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, if Washington, D.C., reduced the number of 2008 dropouts by one-half, the city would generate $157 million in increased earnings; $142 million in increased spending and investing; $22 million in increased tax revenue and 750 new jobs. If the same thing were to occur in Baltimore, the city would see $77 million in increased earnings; $72 million in increased spending and investing; $12 million in increased tax revenue and 500 new jobs.

The Alliance for Excellent Education in a new policy brief offered its recommendations for the next generation of assessments to better measure the soon-to-be-released internationally benchmarked Common Core standards. AEE Senior Fellow Robert Rothman, author of Principles for a Comprehensive Assessment System ,argued that any effort to raise standards for students will likely fail without strong assessments. 

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that people with college degrees earn on average about twice as much as those with only a high school degree.   The earnings difference is even higher for men and women with masters, professional and doctorial degrees. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education—the education advocacy organization chaired by former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise—“90 percent of the fastest growing professions and at least 60 percent of all current jobs require post-secondary education.”

Ask any school administrator what they think about No Child Left Behind, and you will probably get a response like this: The concept of accountability so that all children succeed is a good one. However, there are numerous problems with the program, such as a requirement that all students achieve at the same level on a standardized test, including those with developmental disabilities...A new report argues that, despite the promise of education reform efforts such as Race to the Top and the state-led common standards movement, improvement can only be sustained if Congress and the Administration update and improve the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

As Checker Finn and other experts on this blog have pointed out, the idea of ensuring that students graduate from high school prepared for college and career is way overdue. Unfortunately, there are still millions of students across the country who are not held to these high expectations. Many of them dropout before earning their diploma while others do graduate from high school, but need remedial courses in college or additional job training to be competent workers.