The Maine Department of Education this week released high school graduation rates calculated for the first time using a soon-to-be-required federal formula.

By requiring all states to use the same method when reporting graduation rates, officials hope to bring some consistency to a process that before varied widely from state to state, making it difficult to compare rates and, thus, identify problems when they arise.

But the new formula is not without its flaws, nor is the idea that any one measurement can provide an accurate assessment of how a state, or individual school district, is dealing with the myriad issues that can cause a student to succeed or fail.

The most glaring problem with the federal formula, yet another cookie-cutter approach sanctioned by the No Child Left Behind Act, is that it only counts students who graduate in four years or less, leaving out those who take a year or two longer to get a diploma, or who earn an alternative diploma such as a GED. So, the graduation rate under the new formula is difficult to compare to the rates figured in past years under the old formula, which counted those students. More than that, the rate gives only the most general of guidance as to how a school is handling its most vulnerable students.

A stakeholders group, created by a law passed last session by the Legislature aimed at bringing the state’s graduation rate to 90 percent by 2016, is now addressing some of those issues. By January 2011, the group is supposed to submit recommendations for best practices for schools, families and students to increase the graduation rate. According to Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Cumberland County, who sponsored the bill, the group is attempting to incorporate into the analysis students who do not take the traditional pathway to graduation.

We hope that they not only include the full range of students in the analysis, but also set the state on the path toward answering some of the unaddressed questions related to graduation and dropout rates: What factors prolong a student’s high school career, or cause them to dropout altogether? Are those factors being adequately addressed in Maine schools? How do they differ across large and small schools? Urban and rural? The success by which the state answers these questions has a far-reaching impact on the quality of education and the cost for delivering it.

In addition, we hope that the state, school officials, residents and especially the media recognize that no one formula can take into account the complicated factors that cause a student to stray from the usual educational path. Though it may be attractive in its simplicity, the graduation rate should not be trotted out every year as the be-all-end-all indicator of a school’s success at keeping students pointed in the right direction.

Education officials need to go beyond those numbers to see that schools and their surrounding communities are providing the right kind of safety net for at-risk students, so that we can truly say that no one is being needlessly left behind.