Morning Announcements: March 22, 2011

Today at the first annual Building a GradNation Summit,  Vice President Joe Biden announced a new campaign calling for states to boost their college graduation rates. The effort includes a $20 million Comprehensive Grant Program for states that carry out plans intended to increase their graduation rates. The administration also released a tool kit of strategies to help governors meet college graduation goals, like stabilizing tuition increases, singling out adults with some college experience but no degree, and making it easier for students to transfer college credits. Read stories by the Associated Press and the New York Times.

Also released at the summit was a report finding that the number of U.S. schools considered "dropout factories" has decreased by 6.4 percent between 2008 and 2009, Education Week reports. Read more about this report in a piece written by the report authors in the Huffington Post. The Hartford Courant also writes about what these report findings mean for Connecticut.

The Contra Costa Times reports on a new study finding that more than 10 percent of California school districts are in financial trouble.

Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith will resign at the end of this school year according to the Miami Herald.