Next time it rewrites its statewide standardized math test, the state Department of Education might consider this challenging question:

With a statewide high school graduation rate of 58.1 percent in 2005 and an improvement rate of 2.6 percentage points over the previous five years, when can Georgia expect to achieve a 100 percent graduation rate?

Answer: 2110.

One hundred and two years is a long, long time —- too long, in fact. But with the sluggish response of state leaders to holistic and meaningful education reform, accelerating that time frame will be very difficult.

While Gov. Sonny Perdue has introduced graduation coaches to identify and deflect potential dropouts in high school, there's far more to be done to reclaim children in the early grades, where most kids wander off track. And rather than whittling away at instructional funding, as Georgia has done in recent years, the state ought to be investing in programs to prepare low-income 3-year-olds for school and to help struggling third-graders learn to read.

To truly transform its low-performing schools, Georgia has to take an honest look at its financial commitment to education. That starts with the governor, who continues to maintain that his administration has not shortchanged education and is, in fact, spending more than ever on a per-pupil basis.

In raw number of dollars, the state is indeed spending more money, but the increases have gone largely to fund across-the-board teacher raises, enrollment growth and health insurance. However, state funding has not kept pace with soaring costs of building maintenance, textbooks and materials.

"When those costs go up but state funding does not, school systems have to spend money that otherwise would have been available to improve student achievement," says Jeffrey Williams, a school finance expert and consultant to the school funding task force created by Perdue four years ago.

The diversion of those funds may be taking a toll, because Georgia's effort to keep students in school isn't working as well as that of other states. In its annual Diplomas Count report released this week, Georgia ranks in the bottom six for high school graduation. And with 58.1 percent of Georgia students earning a diploma in four years in 2005, we're well behind the national average of 70.6 percent. (Diplomas Count is produced by Editorial Projects in Education, a nonprofit that publishes Education Week, an education journal.)

The report notes that fewer than six in 10 students graduate on time in the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico and South Carolina. In comparison, more than eight in 10 graduate on time in Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin.

While the state DOE argues that Georgia is doing better, our improvement trails that of other states in the region. According to Diplomas Count, while Georgia's on-time graduation rate improved by 2.6 percentage points between 2001 and 2005, North Carolina's grew by 3.5 percentage points, Tennessee and Florida each jumped about 8 points and South Carolina progressed 4.9 percentage points.

Research shows that most students give up on high school in ninth grade. In 2003-2004, 4.19 million students were enrolled in grade nine, but 10.5 percent of those students didn't move on to 10th grade; in 2004-2005, tenth-grade enrollment was only 3.75 million.

For those who wonder why so much attention is paid to high school graduation, look at the economic implications. Today's high school dropouts will on average earn $260,000 less over their lifetimes than a high school graduate, and a million dollars less than a college graduate.

The loss is felt by more than the dropout, explains Bob Wise, the former governor of West Virginia and now president of the Alliance for Excellent Education: "The estimated 1.23 million students not graduating with their peers in the class of 2008 will cost the nation well over $300 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes."

—- Maureen Downey, for the editorial board (mdowney@ajc.com)

A TALE OF TWO STATES

High school graduation rates for the class of 2005, for Georgia and North Carolina:

................Georgia....N.C.

All students ......58.1%....67%

Male ..............52.8%....61.3%

Female ............63.8%....73.3%

American Indian....45.1%....47%

Asian..............80.9%....78.5%

Hispanic ..........39.1%....53.7%

Black..............49%......58.4%

White..............64.5%....72.7%

Five-year trend for all students:

......................................Georgia....N.C.

Graduation rate for the class of 2001....55.5%....63.5%

Change from 2001 to 2005..................2.6% ....3.5%

Source; Diplomas Count 2008, Editorial Projects in Education, www.edweek.org