ED, what should a quality education include?

WJBD 1350 AM has has a story that references Sen. Kimberly Lightford's (D-Maywood) ideas about education, jobs and poverty.

People without diplomas have inferior jobs and their children tend to live in poverty. There's a committee working to lower the drop-out rate. Lightford then jumps to schools need more money and Illinois needs a tax swap.

Why don't people who have diplomas get good jobs?

• Is it because they know certain facts? Or can't process the information?
• Do employers not offer jobs to people without diplomas?
• Or is it that people who don't show up to class turn into employees that don't show up to work?

The follow-up questions are important. If people without diplomas basically can do the jobs but employers are discriminating then it would make sense to make it easy to get some piece of paper equivalent of a high school diploma.

If the issue is absenteeism, it doesn't seem like investing in teachers is an appropriate strategy. What's the point of having great teachers if the students aren't coming to class?

Here's a concern: what if the schools, teachers unions, administrators, et al are starting with the premise schools need more money and are fitting their arguments around the assumption that more money is the end and not the means to educating students?

Have we, as a society, defined what a good education is? Is it time to step back from the education issue and ask, what constitutes a quality education in this era?

Once we define a quality education then we can design a system to deliver a quality education to all.