Andrew J. Rotherham reports in TIME  that the national graduation rate has inched up from 72% in 2001 to 75% in 2008. There were 261 fewer dropout factories in 2008 than in 2002. And during that six-year period, 29 states improved their graduation rates with two of them -  Wisconsin and Vermont -  reaching almost a 90% graduation rate. A new report by Johns Hopkins University along with two education-oriented groups, America's Promise Alliance and Civic Enterprises, shows that eight states had graduation rates below 70% in 2008, and 2.2 million students still attend dropout factories. An achievement gap also persists: only 64% of Hispanic students and 62% of African Americans graduated in 2008, while 81% of white students. More... [1]