The Bush administration sought on April 22 to bolster its signature education law, proposing new rules designed to address the nation's dropout problem and ensure educators pay close attention to the achievement of minority students.

As part of changes proposed for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said all states by the 2012-13 school year should have to calculate their graduation rates in a single, uniform way.

States would be told, in most cases, to count as graduates those students who leave on time and with a regular degree. Research reportedly indicates students who take extra time or get alternatives to diplomas, such as a GED, generally don't do as well in college or in the work force.

Implementing the proposed rules could have an impact on programming for the increasingly popular student information systems (SIS) many school districts now rely on. Some SIS providers, however, said they can handle whatever changes the new rules might require.

"For us, it's not a particularly tough job to do," said Brian Currie, CEO of aal Solutions.  Currie explained that eSIS, the company's student information system, is an enterprise structure that runs everything from a central point. Said Andrea Chiamarelli, aal's chief operating officer, "Our system is very capable of handling that situation, and it would be a benefit to our clients because things will be standardized." In fact, another aal representative explained, a uniform approach might reduce SIS maintenance costs.

Brent Bingham, vice president of product marketing for Pearson's School Systems group, said his company's SIS offerings are designed to support multiple needs and that the company is looking forward to meeting the requirements "of the soon-to-be defined standard formulation for graduation rates."

According to ED, states currently use all kinds of methods to determine their graduation rates, many of which are based on unreliable information about school dropouts, a practice that can make a state’s graduation rate seem better than it actually is.

Although states would no longer be able to use their own methods for calculating graduation rates, they still would be able to set their own goals for getting more students to graduate. Critics say that leeway might allow some states to continue setting weak improvement goals.

The administration's proposed regulations would require schools to be judged not only on how the overall student body does but also on the percentage of minority students who graduate.

Nationally, an estimated 70 percent of students graduate on time with a regular diploma. For Hispanic and black students, the proportion drops to about half.

Critics of NCLB have complained that judging schools on test scores but not, to the same degree, on graduation rates has created an incentive for schools to push weak students out or into non-diploma tracks.