Call to action.

Call to action. On March 22, at the "Building a Grad" National Summit,Vice President Joe Biden This article is about the United States Senator from Delaware, for other uses of the name, see Biden.Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, Delaware. issued a call to action to boost collegegraduation rates across the country and help the nation meet PresidentObama's goal for the U.S. to have the best-educated workforce andthe highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.Specifically, the Vice President, who has made college accessibility andaffordability a key priority in his role as chairman of the Middle ClassTask Force, called on governors to host state college completionsummits, released a college completion toolkit, and announced a newgrant competition focused on helping institutions of higher education(IHEs) increase completion rates. "Today, we've got an education system that works like afunnel-when we need it to work like a pipeline," stressed the VicePresident. "We have to make the same commitment to getting studentsacross the graduation stage that we did to getting them into theregistrar's office. The skills of our college graduates will pave PAVECardiology A clinical trial–Post AV Node Ablation Evaluation the way to a bright economic future for our nation." To meet the President's 2020 goal, the U.S. will have toincrease the number of college graduates by 50%, turning out at leasteight million additional graduates by the end of the decade. "America once led the world in the number of college graduatesit produces, and now we've fallen to ninth," added SecretaryDuncan, who delivered opening remarks at the summit. The best jobs andfastest-growing firms, whether in biosciences, technology,manufacturing, trade, or entertainment, will gravitate grav��i��tate?intr.v. grav��i��tat��ed, grav��i��tat��ing, grav��i��tates1. To move in response to the force of gravity.2. To move downward.3. to countries,states, and communities with a highly qualified workforce. In order forthe United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. to lead the world, every governor will have to leadthe way at home." To help governors develop state college completion plans, theAdministration released a calculation of each state's share of thePresident's 2020 goal, as well as a comprehensive collegecompletion toolkit of suggested policies to boost college graduationrates. The toolkit identifies seven no-cost or low-cost strategies, 15related action steps, and a series of existing federal resource streamsfrom which to draw. Strategies include aligning high school exit andcollege placement standards, linking state funding to college success inboosting completion rates, making it easier for students to transferamong colleges, and re-engaging adults with some college experience butno degree. The Administration is also making a number of financial resourcesavailable to help the governors execute their plans to boost completionrates. For example, the Department is currently accepting applicationsfor the 2011 Comprehensive Grant Program, which is part of the Fund forthe Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE FIPSE Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education ). This program willprovide a total of $20 million to IHEs to implement plans that canincrease success and improve productivity and that have the potential toserve as models for the nation. In its Fiscal Year 2012 budget, theAdministration also proposed the First in the World initiative, whichwould award competitive funds to support programs that embraceinnovative practices to accelerate learning, boost completion rates, andhold down tuition, and the College Completion Incentive Grants Program,which would reward states and IHEs for undertaking reforms that producemore college graduates. Also: An update released at the summit reveals the number of"dropout (1) On magnetic media, a bit that has lost its strength due to a surface defect or recording malfunction. If the bit is in an audio or video file, it might be detected by the error correction circuitry and either corrected or not, but if not, it is often not noticed by the human factory" high schools, where 40% or more of studentsfail to graduate on time, continues to fall. Nationwide, the number ofsuch schoolsfell by 112 schools (6.4%) from 2008 to 2009 and by 373 schools(nearly 20%) from 2002 to 2009. While these schools represent only afraction of all public high schools, they account for more than half ofall dropouts each year. Interestingly, whereas the improvementswitnessed through 2008 were primarily driven by gains in the South andwithin suburbs and towns, improvements between 2008 and 2009 were alsodriven by gains in the Midwest and West and within urban and ruralareas. The update also offers three profiles of success: HillsboroughCounty Hillsborough County is the name of two counties in the United States: Hillsborough County, Florida, including Tampa Hillsborough County, New Hampshire (Florida), Baltimore, and Canton and Cincinnati (Ohio). (Note:Researchers analyzed data from the Department's Common Core ofData, using the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate [AFGR AFGR Approved Force Gross Requirement ] and promotingpower to determine students' progress.)