Ask me no questions

Under NCLB, many of the states have been lying about their drop-out rates. Big surprise - the law left them the unchecked latitude to fudge their "mandatory" statistics.

It's very easy to find out the percentage in an age cohort who have diplomas. Count 'em, which you can do well enough without a census using births and life expectancies. Divide that number by the total number of diplomas issued. If these numbers are far off from graduation rates, someone's reporting bullshit.

This has been a lie that everyone was happy to leave hidden in plain sight. Fortunately, no more.

The number one education crisis in this country is not what schools teach the kids who stay. It's what schools don't teach the kids who leave. Our high school graduation rates are poor, and our college graduation rates - once the world's highest - are slipping well back into the pack.

This is why we're not prepared for the 21st century. The old saw says that a job is the best social welfare program, but the jobs you can get without an education often don't qualify.