College acceptances are in the mail, and high school seniors are ripping open fat envelopes and thin envelopes and sitting down with their parents to figure out where they'll spend the next four years of their lives.

But not all of Maine's high school-age children are participating in this annual ritual. The ones who have dropped out of high school are not going to be thinking about what subject they want to major in or which classes to take to best prepare them for their eventual career.

And because of that, they're not likely to get as much out of, or contribute as much to, Maine's economy. They are, instead, more likely to reflect a grim national statistic: Dropouts earn less, have a poorer quality of life and create significant costs for the communities and states in which they live, according to the non-profit educational advocacy group The Alliance for Excellent Education.

If Maine's children are to have a future, getting a high school diploma is a must for most of them. Which means the state and schools must figure out how to discourage students from dropping out. But dealing with a problem requires first that the dimensions of the problem be known -- and until now, Maine schools have used a variety of different ways to measure dropout rates. That hasn't helped us understand the full measure of the problem.

So Maine has adopted a new method of counting dropouts that promises to standardize how high schools track students' dropout and graduation rates. In doing so, the dropout rates at many of the state's high schools went up when compared from the 2004-2005 school (measured the old way) and the new method of counting used the following school year. Wiscasset's rate leaped from 1.68 percent to 9.3 percent; Morse High School in Bath saw its rate jump go from 6 percent to 9.3 percent.

Predictably, some school administrators complained about the new method of measuring. In the maddeningly touchy-feely language that is an affliction among some educators, one principal said she doesn't regard those who have left high school as dropouts. "I have to recognize there are kids who have a life outside of school that doesn't always mesh with my goals for them," she said.

Morse High School principal Peter Kahl was refreshingly openminded, telling one reporter that the higher dropout rate at his school demonstrated by the new method is more accurate than the rate reported the year before and will help his community focus on ways to keep students in school.

Knowledge is power, a great philosopher once said -- and a true picture of Maine's dropout rate is an essential tool in understanding the challenge ahead of us and what we have to do to tackle it.