The 2013 edition of "Diplomas Count," entitled "Second Chances: Turning Dropouts into Graduates," examines dropout recovery and innovative strategies for returning to the educational fold the 1 million students who leave school without a diploma each year. "Education Week's" journalists investigate interventions that…

In the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in the northwest corner of South Carolina, high schools' attempts to curb student dropouts may not match what many people picture when they hear talk of the nation's "dropout factories." Yet one-fifth of the 2,000 high schools nationwide categorized that way by researchers at Johns Hopkins…

President Barack Obama's call for every state to require school attendance until age 18 may spark a flurry of action in some statehouses, but changing attendance laws will do little by itself to drive down the nation's dropout rates, experts on the issue say. In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama said states should require…

The General Educational Development program, or GED, is undergoing the biggest revamping in its 69-year history, driven by mounting recognition that young adults' future success depends on getting more than a high-school-level education. Potent forces have converged to stoke the GED's redesign. A labor market that increasingly seeks some…

This is not an average classroom. All of the 15 students in the English class Christin M. Bradshaw is teaching on a late-October afternoon are dressed identically in desert fatigues and combat boots. All the young men have uniform buzz cuts. Outside, there is the faint popping of distant rifle practice and the shouted commands of drill sergeants…

Earning a high school diploma is one of the milestones for students who come to the United States from other countries. But for those who arrive in their middle to late teens, learning enough English to earn a diploma can seem all but impossible. Some students from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, however, are discovering an option that has…

Participation in the GED testing program plunged by nearly 44 percent during the most recent recorded year, a drop-off that the exam's sponsor attributes to an earlier rush by teenagers and adults to secure high school diplomas through the test before its minimum passing scores were raised. The overall number of teenagers and adults who took the…

"Education Week" provides a weekly review of state and federal K-12 education policy news. In this issue it offers detailed data on graduation rates across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and in the nation's 50 largest school districts. The analysis is based on the Cumulative Promotion Index developed by Christopher B. Swanson, the…