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Progress Is No Accident: Why ESEA Can’t Backtrack on High School Graduation Rates

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In conjunction with the White House Next Gen High School Summit on November 10, a new report finds that the number of high school dropouts decreased from 1 million in 2008 to approximately 750,000 in 2012. The report, released by All4Ed, America’s Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, and Everyone Graduates Center, also finds that there is much work yet to be done, with 1,235 high schools failing to graduate one-third or more of their students.

Progress Is No Accident: Why ESEA Can’t Backtrack on High School Graduation Rates credits the improvement in high school graduation rates to state and local on-the-ground efforts, as well as federal requirements issued in 2008 and 2011 targeted at the dropout crisis—the same requirements that are absent from current efforts to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind Act.