Mission:
To ensure that middle-school students are prepared for success in high school.

Background:
Launched by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change in October 2006, the Learning to Finish campaign has three primary components: getting all eighth-graders ready for high school (studies have shown that students who falter in or after eighth grade often end up leaving school permanently); conducting an accurate assessment of the dropout problem; and mobilizing all the resources in a community to help children achieve success. The program was piloted in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Jacksonville, Florida, and the partnership plans to expand it to twenty-three more cities by the end of 2008. Funded by the Knight Foundation's New Voices program, the Learning to Finish wiki fosters collaboration among parents, educators, community members, researchers, and students in an effort to lower the dropout rate. It also provides an online public forum for the sharing of information and best practices.

Outstanding Web Feature:
The Finish Line Calculator provides projected graduation rates for individual school districts, states, and the United States as a whole, and also calculates the likelihood that a ninth-grader in a specific district will complete high school on time. The tool includes an explanation of the calculations, which are based on enrollment data from the Common Core of Data at the National Center for Educational Statistics. Due to missing data or large fluctuations in enrollment, some school districts are not represented, but information on how to calculate their dropout rates is provided.