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Bob Wise, President of the Alliance for Excellent Education, Reacts to Secretary Spellings’s Announcement of Regulations for Uniform Graduation Rate Calculations

Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, issued the following statement in response to final regulations to strengthen the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) announced today by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. These regulations include the requirement of a uniform calculation for determining every high school’s graduation rate:

“If Federal Express can track a package all along its route until it’s delivered, then we should be able to keep track of all of our students from the moment they enter school. Secretary Spellings’s announcement today calling for a uniform graduation rate calculation addresses a crucial gap in the No Child Left Behind Act, one that has left us without a clear understanding of how many students actually earn a high school diploma.

“Meaningful education reform hinges on a fair, accurate, and consistent portrait of our nation’s schools. With the implementation of a uniform calculation rate, NCLB moves a step further toward ensuring the high-quality education for all of America’s students that it initially promised.

“The secretary is to be commended for strengthening the law so that it reflects a truer picture of where education stands in this country, where it needs to be, and how we’re going to get there.”

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The Alliance for Excellent Education is a Washington-based policy, research, and advocacy organization that works to make every child a graduate, prepared for postsecondary education and success in life.

For more information about the Alliance for Excellent Education, please visit www.all4ed.com.