Editor’s note: In this first part of a multipart series on quality in education, we will provide an overview of the current state of quality education issues. In addition, a few of the lean practices that are now being adopted by education thought leaders will be shared.

Schools and businesses are more alike than different. Standards of excellence apply to both. There is much finger-pointing at how the U.S. education system is failing to prepare another generation of workers with the requisite skill sets.

Indeed, there are more than six million jobs available in the United States and an unemployment rate stubbornly stuck above 8 percent. These two pieces of information would appear incongruent, yet employers regularly insist that basic needed skills—rudimentary math, reading, and comprehension—are lacking among more than 80 percent of all applicants.

It is impossible to examine the role of preparing a future workforce without looking at early education: All roads lead to elementary education.

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