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Today, a national dropout prevention summit takes place in Washington. The Department of Education is moving toward a standard reporting of dropout rates across the country.

More and more leaders are waking up to the opportunity to reduce dramatically the number of high school dropouts. There's probably no single more effective step we can take to boost long-term per capita incomes, as we move into an era of skill shortages. (Each drop out represents a lifetime earnings loss of about $300,000.)

Here's a new report from America's Promise Alliance. Download the report.

Clearly, old solutions to drop-outs (including pretending that the problem was not all that big) no longer work.

Can we innovate?

Late last year, the Urban Institute produced an important report, called "America's Forgotten Middle Skill Jobs". The report may be important point that the demand for jobs in the so-called "middle tier" of skills will remain strong. These are jobs that require postsecondary education but less than a four year college degree.

About half of our national employment falls in the jobs in the middle-skill range. At the same time, about 45% of all job openings between 2004 and 2014 will fall into job categories in the middle skill range.

The authors of the report highlight the fact that policy often focuses too much on the 25% of jobs that require a four year college degree in above.  Not enough attention is paid to these middle skilled jobs which comprise almost half of our workforce.

A recent article in Maine highlighted the importance of middle skilled jobs in that state.  Read more.

You can download a copy of the Middle Skill report here .