“Tennessee has made great gains in increasing its high school graduation rate,” said Congressman Cohen.  “I salute the teachers and administrators in Tennessee who have worked hard to keep kids in school and I’m pleased that I was able to contribute by working to pass the Lottery referendum in 2002 and enact Lottery scholarships in 2003.  This report is proof positive that if we work together we can better prepare our children for success in college, work and life.”

Dubbed the “Father of the Tennessee Lottery,” then-State Senator Steve Cohen worked tirelessly for 18 years to pass legislation, first to permit the establishment of a state Lottery and, then, to enact legislation to establish the Tennessee Education Lottery whose revenues fund college scholarships, after-school programs, and pre-K education for Tennessee students.  The referendum to permit a state lottery passed in November of 2002 and legislation establishing lottery scholarships was enacted in the spring of 2003.

The Powell report is called “Building a Grad Nation” and was published by America’s Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University.  The report notes that the state of Tennessee and New York City led the nation by boosting graduation rates 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively.  The report continues to note that Tennessee and New York made “breakthrough gains,” sharply raising their graduation rates from 2002 to 2008.

The report goes on to cite two statistics. The national graduation rate increased to 75 percent in 2008, from 72 percent in 2001.  And the number of high schools that researchers call dropout factories -- based on a formula that compares a school’s 12th-grade enrollment with its 9th-grade enrollment three years earlier -- declined to about 1,750 in 2008, from about 2,000 such schools in 2002.

While these schools represent a small fraction of all public high schools in America, they account for about half of all high school dropouts each year.  Experts say targeting these high schools for improvement is a critical part of turning around the nation’s dropout rate.

Tennessee was also one of the first states to receive Race to the Top funding and has a commitment from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, so this is just the beginning in continuing to improve Tennessee’s graduations rates and produce a future competitive workforce.