But in a more recent snapshot, one of the most important indicators, the dropout rate, provides some hope.

The state's schools chief last month said the dropout rate in the 2006-2007 academic year had fallen to 4.6 percent, the lowest in more than a decade.

However, the 2006 report, "The Silent Epidemic, Perspectives of High School Dropouts," points to flaws in how dropout rates are measured nationwide.

That report, conducted for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation by Civic Enterprises and Peter D. Hart Research Associates, states that no one really knows how many students drop out of U.S. high schools because the majority of states don't track students over time. They just report annual enrollments.

"It's not unusual for a school to report a 10 percent dropout rate when the number of graduates is 70 percent lower than the number of ninth graders who enrolled four years earlier," the report states.

The announcement that Nevada's dropout rate had fallen to 4.6 percent followed an earlier report that pegged the state's dropout rate at 11 percent in 2004-2005.

The earlier report was based on federal data, resulting from a survey in which teens were asked whether they were still in school or had earned diplomas.

In contrast, the 2007 Nevada Kids Count Data Book used state data to reach its dropout statistic. It put the rate at 5.7 percent in 2004-2005.

A 2005 report points to many factors compounding the challenges to improve the state's dismal achievement ranking and graduation rate, both of which hover below those of most other states.

"Student Achievement and Graduate Rates in Nevada" cites the state's comparatively low per-pupil spending, explosive population growth and increase in the number of students living in poverty.

One in five people moving to Las Vegas for low-skill service jobs has a sixth-grade education or lower, the report states.

It also blames the state's labor market, namely the gaming industry, for creating disincentives for some students to remain in school.

"Easy job availability for those with low skills also entices some students to drop out of high school and may help explain why Nevada ranks near the bottom nationally in numbers of state students who go on to postsecondary education," the report states.

The good news: While relatively few high school graduates in Nevada attend college, compared with those in other states, the percentage of those who enrolled in college soon after high school increased to 40 percent in 2002, up from 33 percent a decade earlier.

The 2006 report illustrates just how bleak employment prospects are without a diploma.

Hundreds of dropouts, ages 16 to 25, were interviewed. Sixty percent said a diploma is very important for success; 47 percent said lacking one made it hard to find a good job.

Seventy-four percent said they would have stayed in school if they had known then what the world expects of them.

High school dropouts earn an average of $9,200 less per year than high school graduates, the 2006 report states, and can expect to make about $1 million less over their lifetimes than college graduates.

Dropouts also are twice as likely to slip into poverty as high school graduates. In 2004, high school dropouts were more than three times likelier to be unemployed than college graduates.

A Baltimore woman summed up quitting school this way: "I think it's one of the worst regrets of my life."