The Colorado Graduates Initiative demonstrates seven factors that must be present to build an effective statewide collaborative effort to increase high school graduation rates. These include: 1) Leadership to unite diverse stakeholders on specific, common goals and catalyze them into action; 2) A focus on data, particularly on actionable, early…

Differences in how states calculate AYP (adequate yearly progress) abound. Does that make one state better than another? Worse? Or is each state doing its best to be "normal"? States make decisions based on the information at hand, and then they move ahead, trying to make the best of those decisions. Under the No Child Left Behind Act,…