Washington ? High schools are coming under pressure from the federal government to improve the nation’s dismal dropout rate – one in four students.

Schools and states now must track and lift the graduation rates for all students, including minorities and students with disabilities, under rules issued Tuesday by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

“In this country today, half of our minority students do not get out of high school on time. That’s outrageous,” Spellings said in Columbia, S.C.

A school might have a high graduation rate but still have a low rate for black or Hispanic students or for kids with disabilities. Making schools responsible for progress in every group of students puts pressure on schools to improve.

The new rules are an attempt to extend the No Child Left Behind education law to the high school grades, and they come in the waning days of the Bush administration, which made the law a signature domestic achievement.

“No Child Left Behind is largely about grades three through eight – there’s not a lot of power in the law as it relates to high school,” Spellings said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“We haven’t really tackled high school accountability, and this is a giant step toward doing that,” Spellings said.