Hope for Increasing Texas' High School Graduation Rate

I am excited to read the Associated Press article published in February 8, 2011, Austin American-Statesman  "Laura Bush to unveil anti-dropout initiative;" especially, since Texas needs a solution to bring up its high school graduation rate. Based on research results on this problem, the George W. Bush Institute concludes the focus should be on the middle schools, grades 6-8, which is a critical time. Middle school is where students are likely to start to lose interest in their studies. High school is when students walk away. Laura Bush will call the initiative "Middle School Matters." It will have a trial run at Stovall Middle School in Houston. Some of the 11 areas on which the initiative will focus will be dropout prevention, reading interventions, school leadership, effective teachers, and school, family, and community support. By 2012-2013, the initiative team plans to have the program in 10-15 schools, and hopefully, more later. I fervently hope that "Middle School Matters" will be so successful in bringing up Texas' high school graduation rate that this will be a program that will spread throughout Texas including Austin.