Many people reacted with surprise to the recent study showing that over a million young people each year fail to graduate from high school in the United States, but not me. I was not surprised. More than that, I was pleased.

It's not that I'm insensitive to the problem or that I enjoy others' misfortunes. Not at all. First off, I have been aware of the seriousness of the subject for many years, and secondly I hope this kind of alarming information will serve to call attention to the problem and to get something done about it.

Some of the findings are very troubling. Every 26 minutes, a young person somewhere in this country drops out of high school studies. Nationally, only seven out of 10 students finish secondary school. In 17 of the 50 largest cities, fewer than half of the high school students graduate. There's a reason the report carries the – very appropriate – title, “Cities in Crisis.”

Among other things, the study, focusing on graduation rates, shows that urban youth are 15 percent less likely to graduate than those in the suburbs.

Those most affected are boys and minorities. The report presented during the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza last summer showed that education is the most important subject to Hispanic voters, and that high school drop-out rates are their greatest worry. Nonetheless we don't hear the candidates in the presidential primaries addressing the subject.

The Bush Administration reacted to the new study by announcing the implementation of new norms for calculating the drop-out rate. The secretary of the Department of Education, Margaret Spellings, said in a press conference that, from now on, the states will have to use one uniform formula for reporting graduation rates. Until now each state has used its own system, frequently based on information that was not very reliable. At some schools, for example, a student is counted as having dropped out only if he or she registers as such, which leads one to think the problem may be worse than we think.

The proposed changes seem to be the closest thing so far to a recognition on the part of the administration that the so-called “No Child Left Behind” law is not as effective as advertised, and is, in fact, setting many children adrift. The education law is meant to punish public schools that do not comply with certain academic requirements, by limiting their access to federal funds. It would not be surprising if some school districts were to seek out creative ways to avoid being sanctioned.

Secretary Spellings referred to the drop-out crisis as a “silent epidemic.” In truth, however, there have been cries of alarm for several years, which have evidently fallen on deaf ears. Seeking common formulas for measuring graduation rates does not sound like a solution to the problem, but as Spellings said, “President Bush likes to say that you can't solve a problem without first making a diagnosis.”

We will hope that they find a diagnosis soon and identify the source of the epidemic so they can begin the treatment. For the students, the consequences of lacking a basic education are very serious. Drop-outs are twice as likely as graduates to be unemployed, three times more likely to live in poverty, and eight times as likely to wind up in prison. If you think the future of our youth is somber, think what it means for the productivity of our country to have a population without the education necessary to compete in an ever more competitive global economy.