It appears some high schools may have been listening to “U2″‘s 10th studio album thinking it was titled “All That You Can Leave Behind” instead of it’s real title “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.”

According to an Oct. 30 Time.com article, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings issued new rules forcing states to adopt a common system to monitor high school dropouts. With no federal system in place to keep track of dropout numbers, the rules come after accusations that the No Child Left Behind federal legislation is leading schools to teach to the test and letting a struggling student drop out before they could lower test scores.

It is unfortunate that it has taken so long for this to be implemented. It was obvious in 2001, when the legislation was first considered, that schools would attempt to find loopholes in the system. While dealing with a lack of funding that was only worsened by the legislation, schools were left to accommodate a set of rules they essentially couldn’t abide by.

Parents, on the other hand, should have stepped in prior to Spellings’ new rules and held the high schools accountable for the staggering trend. Although the high schools do deserve blame for the increasing dropout rates, parents are more responsible than the schools when it comes to getting children to graduate. The increase in dropout rates is a sign parents have begun to emphasize the need for graduation a lot less than previously seen. Link this with a decline in actual interest from young people in learning and it’s easy to see why the trend continues to grow.

Although this is a good first step, a lot more needs to be done in order to raise interest in learning. Preparing students for a test that covers English, science and social studies does not expose them to a wide array of subjects to learn from. Only learning about three subjects becomes tedious and widening the array of choices for subjects would help in raising interest in learning. This heightened interest can only help out the country and help to decrease the dropout rate that continues to grow each year.