City schools Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard recently discussed measures he is taking to help at-risk students to graduate. If graduation was to take place today, Brizard says, he is sure that at least 42 percent of city school students will graduate. That is up from the number of students who graduated last year. Or is it?

Accurate reporting of graduation rates has been a problem for public schools nationwide. President Bush's 2002 No Child Left Behind act has put pressure on schools to meet grade-level testing standards, and it was expected to drag graduation rates into the light. The problem: states have been allowed to create their own formulas for calculating graduation rates.

The New York Times's Sam Dillon reports that the nation's graduation rate, by almost any calculation, is getting worse. And allowing each state to come up with its own method for calculating how many students graduate from high school in four years isn't helping.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is preparing to announce a sweeping regulatory change next week affecting all 50 states, and how they collect and report graduation data.

New York, Dillon writes, has reported a 77 percent graduation rate to comply with No Child Left Behind, but using the federal government's formula, the state's graduation rate is 65 percent.