The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reports the suburban Lakewood School District is taking a novel approach to marketing its graduates - once they've hurdled the Ohio Graduation Test and met all other requirements for a diploma.

Starting with the district's 475 graduates this year, Lakewood is using the label "Guaranteed Graduate" to describe its academic product. It means that every graduate comes with a two-year warranty that allows employees or professors to "return" the graduate for more education if he or she fails to meet the demands of the real world work or higher education. The district will pay for the graduate to take coursework via its online school (Digital Academy) or continuing education program.

The district won't just take the employer or professor's word that the graduate is deficient in some area. It will administer its own OGT-type assessment to see if the former student is really lacking.

The intervention will last as long as it takes the graduate to catch up.

Superintendent David Estrop described the idea as Lakewood "putting its money where its mouth is."