America's Promise Alliance, along with Civic Enterprises and Johns Hopkins University's Everyone Graduates Center, just released an important new report about high school graduation rates.

Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic is rich with data. It offers some good news: Several states and cities are making strong progress toward raising graduation rates. But there's still a huge challenge ahead of us if, as a nation, we're going to reach the GradNation campaign's goal: a 90 percent high school graduation rate by the year 2020.

The report calls schools, community organizations, public officials and citizens everywhere to act on a "Civic Marshall Plan" to prepare all young people for college and success in the 21st century.

If you're thinking about an encore career that focuses on education or youth services, getting involved in raising the graduation rate offers lots of roles for you. The supports that students need to stay in school start early. For example, supplemental tutoring and mentoring help struggling students learn to read.

All students need sustained support for regular attendance at school, consistent progress in their coursework, and practicing positive behavior in and outside the classroom. To ensure that enough caring and committed adults are available to provide these supports, the report states, "We must call on, and systematically organize, national and local nonprofits that can bring skilled and committed young and older adults, community members, and social service providers into the lives of all students..." (p. 16).

For specific ideas about how you can help in your community, visit this link. And if you have a great new idea, submit it to the LaunchPad contest. You could win $5K to make your idea a reality!