High school graduation rates continue to improve and remain on track to meet a national goal of 90 percent by 2020, according to the latest Building a Grad Nation report, released annually by a coalition of educational organizations.1 The graduation rate for the 2012-2013 school year hit 81.4 percent, the highest since states adopted a new method of calculating graduation rates in 2010. Advances by black and Hispanic students help account for this trend. However, national gains are distributed unevenly among school districts, and graduation rates remain unacceptably low in some areas for low-income, English-language learning and special education students.