LAUSD says fewer dropouts

Redrawing the dire high school graduation picture painted just a few months ago, Los Angeles Unified officials announced this week that the district's dropout rate fell sharply in 2007-08 to about 26 percent.Connie Llanos in the Daily News.

The new figures were a wide discrepancy from statistics released in May that showed the dropout rate at about 34 percent.

District officials attributed the change to a new system to track graduation, increased efforts to find and re-enroll students and a previous system that double-counted some dropouts.