INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (July 19, 2005) Indiana has joined 38 states and 11 national organizations in efforts to dramatically increase four-year high school graduation rates. The agreement, announced during a ceremony at the National Governors Association (NGA) annual meeting which ended July 18, outlines five task force recommendations states should use to develop a high-quality, comparable high school graduation measure, as well as complementary indicators of student progress and outcomes and data systems capable of collecting, analyzing and reporting the data.

Success in high school is crucial to the growth of Indiana's economy, said Daniels. It's important to combine solid metrics with the need to increase the number of high school graduates. By utilizing new instruments to monitor graduation and dropout data, we can institute the reforms needed to empower our students to succeed.

The agreement, Graduation Counts: A Compact on State High School Graduation Data, stems from the newly released Graduation Counts: A Report on the NGA Task Force on State High School Graduation Data.

Governors from 39 states signed the compact. They are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The 11 national organizations which signed the compact are: Alliance for Excellent Education, Association of American Colleges & Universities, Council of Chief State School Officers, Education Commission of the States, Educational Testing Service, National Association of State Boards of Education, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Education Association, Standard & Poor's, State Higher Education Executive Officers, The Business Roundtable and The Education Trust.

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