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 children 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.

She announced the rules Tuesday in South Carolina, where the graduation rate mirrors the national average of 73 percent. South Carolina has set a goal of 88 percent.

Under No Child Left Behind, schools have to meet annual targets for improving graduation rates.

But states are allowed to set their own targets for improvement. And more than half the states have targets that don't make schools get better, according to a study last week by The Education Trust, a children's advocacy group. In some states, all that's required is that schools don't do worse.

South Carolina, despite graduating more kids, only requires schools to do as well or better than they did the year before.

The federal government cannot force states to set more ambitious goals. But it can make states uncomfortable by holding schools accountable — publicly — for failing to graduate more students.

"The power of the spotlight is what's important about No Child Left Behind," Spelling said.

The new rules do two things to shine the spotlight on school dropouts:

n States must track dropouts, along with graduates and transfers, using the same reporting system. They currently use a hodgepodge of methods that make it hard to compare states, and the National Governors Association has recommended a uniform tracking system.

• Schools, starting with the 2012 school year, must meet those targets for minority groups and children with disabilities, as well as for the overall student population, to satisfy the yearly progress requirements of No Child Left Behind. Schools that don't meet yearly goals for every group of students face consequences, such as having to pay for tutoring or replace principals.

Schools will be judged on whether children finish high school with a regular diploma in four years. The secretary of education will consider exceptions for kids who take five or six years to graduate, such as students who are learning English or those with disabilities.

But Spellings wants the pressure on schools to graduate students in four years.

Congress tried to address the dropout crisis as lawmakers prepared to rewrite the education law last year. But the rewrite stalled, and Spellings moved ahead with new rules.

Reaction to the new rules was a bit tentative on Capitol Hill, where No Child Left Behind has grown as unpopular as the lame-duck president who championed it.

Delaware Republican Rep. Mike Castle, a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, called the rules a "foundational first step."

He added, "The fact remains that No Child Left Behind as a whole is in need of reform, and I hope it is at the top of the agenda in 2009."

California Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House education committee, said, "It is troubling that the Bush administration has waited until the last possible minute" to address the graduation rate and said the next president must work with Congress to improve the education law.

A warmer reception came from the lawmaker who helped Bush pass the law, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner said the senator regards the rules as a "significant step forward."

The Education Trust, the group calling for more ambitious graduation goals, agreed the rules are a good foundation.

"But now we need to do the hard work," policy analyst Daria Hall said. "It's going to be up to the states to step up to the plate and set meaningful improvement targets and provide the support that students and schools need in order to meet those higher expectations."

Criticism has come from groups who say schools will be whipsawed between the outgoing Bush administration and a new White House, and new Congress, likely to create new graduation rules when they finally rewrite the education law.