If you ask anyone in the governor's office or the Georgia Department of Education about high school graduation rates, you'll hear that the state's children surpass their peers across the country. But, if you ask experts from anywhere else, you'll be told Georgia is below the national average.

Depending on who crunches the numbers, the state's high-school graduation rate is somewhere between 64 percent and 80 percent. In two years, everyone one will use the same formula for calculating the rates, and Georgians should prepare for a statistical let down.

By that universal formula, the state average was 64 percent in 2007 compared to 72 for the average of the 16 nearby states and 74 percent nationally. The Peach State is behind the national average in every demographic group.

Georgia officials say they're not trying to fool anyone with their method but argue they have the best way to reflect the mobility of students in such a growing state. They simply compute the percentage of seniors who graduate.

On the other hand, the approach that will be used by every state in 2011 figures the percentage of freshmen that graduate four years later. One reason Georgia's method may be so much higher is that more ninth, tenth and eleventh graders are behind schedule for graduating on time than in other states. Just 67 percent of Georgia high schoolers in all grades are on track to graduate on schedule.

Being behind means more reach the legal dropout age before they even enroll in the twelfth grade, leaving the students most likely to complete their education.

Sen. Lester Jackson and Rep. Mickey Stephens, both Savannah Democrats, are sponsoring legislation that would raise the legal dropout age from 16 to 17 in an effort to boost the graduation rate. Says Jackson, "Sixteen-year-olds are simply not mature enough to make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives."

The problems probably start well before the students turn 16. Georgia has nearly the worst "ninth grade bulge" in the country, ranked 46th among states. The bulge is caused by the number of freshmen flunking each year as courses get harder than they were in middle school, about 18 percent, according to the Southern Regional Education Board.

Giving special attention to freshmen is a main recommendation from the SREB, an Atlanta-based clearinghouse for ideas funded by 16 states. It recently published "The Next Generation of School Accountability: A Blueprint for Raising High School Achievement and Graduation Rates in SREB States" with specific ideas.

For example, the authors note the success of "freshmen academies" where administrators separate ninth graders from students in higher grades, assign them to smaller classes and keep the classes together all day as they change subjects. "One of the things we recommend is that state build a better bridge into high school," says SREB spokesman Alan Richard.

That means ensuring middle-school courses more closely align with what students will need when they enter high school.

Also important is providing teachers with ongoing training on what their colleagues are doing that works best, as well as tips on how to make classroom instruction seem more relevant to the careers students think they'll pursue, experts say.

"You're not going to be able to hook kids if you aren't able to tie it to something that's relevant," says Susan Wells, policy director at the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, a think tank sponsored by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

The Partnership released its own list of recommendations last month, which ranges from common planning periods for teachers of the same subject to financial incentives for luring the best teachers into the most challenging schools.

Georgia has recently been doing some things that are already working. Graduation rates are rising, any way they're counted. By the state's method, they have risen 15.9 percentage points since 2002. "You can't deny that Georgia has made some great progress in recent years," Wells says.

In that time, the state has rewritten its curriculum, making it more rigorous, and gotten rid of the two types of diplomas - college-prep and general. "That's the whole idea behind having a rigorous curriculum and a unified set of core graduation requirements, to make sure that everyone who goes to college has the skills they need to be successful," says Dana Tofig, a spokesman for the Department of Education.

Of course, tougher courses could also make even more kids discouraged and inclined to simply give up. That's why Rep. Fran Millar, chairman of the House Education Committee, is sponsoring legislation to provide a more defined path for students who intend to pursue trade school instead of college.

The state has also put "graduation coaches" in every middle school and high school, the first state in the country to do so. These counselors, a personal project of Gov. Sonny Perdue, help individual students visualize their careers and draw up a personalized education plan.

Most observers credit the coaches with much of the steady rise in graduation rates because they address kids individually. "There are many complex factors that contribute to kids' dropping out, such as not reading on grade level, high absenteeism, disengagement from the learning process, lack of parental engagement and support at home, teen pregnancy, and negative peer pressure," says Carol Lewis, chief operating officer for Communities In Schools of Georgia.

CIS is a network of schools operated around the state for students most at risk of dropping out. And it trains the graduation coaches on techniques it has found successful over its 30 years.

The way to boost the state's graduation rates is complicated and requires many facets, especially when budgets are tight and teachers are stretched for time. "One of the reasons you don't see a list of 10 solutions is because there is no one silver bullet," says Wells. Good schools do lots of things, and weak schools are often weak in many areas.