Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic. Annual Update, 2010-2011

America continues to make progress in meeting its high school dropout challenge. Leaders in education, government, nonprofits and business have awakened to the individual, social and economic costs of the dropout crisis and are working together to solve it. This year, all states, districts, and schools are required by law to calculate high school graduation rates according to a common formula and reporting standards and, for the first time, be held accountable for setting goals and meeting annual targets. Forty states and the District of Columbia have raised their standards to help more students graduate with the skills they need to compete in the global economy. The federal government has made strategic investments in secondary education and has provided states with incentives to enact reforms and fuel innovation that will help sustain momentum. All the states have pledged to build longitudinal data systems to track student progress over time, and a growing number of states and school districts are using early warning data so that those students who exhibit the first signs of dropping out receive the academic and community-based supports they need. In turn, nonprofits, education associations, businesses, and foundations are aligning their thought capital and assets with a "Civic Marshall Plan" to keep students on track to graduate from high school and ready for college and work. The Civic Marshall Plan aims to end the dropout epidemic and establishes concrete goals and benchmarks for measuring progress along the way. The framework of the Civic Marshall Plan is shared in this paper, prompting action within low graduation rate communities, building and enabling state and district capacity to improve graduation and college readiness rates, and accelerating graduation rates by strengthening the public education system. Appendices include: (1) List of Leadership Council Members; and (2) Change in Dropout Factory High Schools 2002 to 2009. (Contains 13 footnotes.) [For the November 2010 report, "Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic", see ED513447.]