The U.S. Department of Education last week released high school graduation ratesRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader for the 2010-11 school year for 47 states, the District of Columbia, and other jurisdictions that were for the first time calculated using a common method ... Even so, "it's an achievement to have this data," said Phillip D.C. Lovell, the vice president for federal advocacy at the Washington-based Alliance for Excellent Education.