Answer THE question, remove all barriers

First Lady Jane Beshear will host "Graduate Kentucky: A Community Approach" this weekend. This is a wonderful stage to highlight the problems and challenges associated with students that drop out of school.

It is great to engage outside speakers and to solicit the input from some of the best thinkers around the commonwealth on how to keep students in school.

However, shouldn’t we expect at least the same kind of urgency and collaboration from those within the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) who are getting paid via our hard-earned tax dollars to solve "the graduation problem?"

But what else can we expect when education officials educators cannot even agree on how to count the number of dropouts?

A few other questions also come to mind:

- Why are the top brains in the KDE following, instead of leading, this week’s event?

- Isn’t it true that the First Lady and all other concerned Kentuckians outside the system do not have the authority to implement any suggested plans, changes, policies, or reforms that may come from this well-intentioned event?

- When will the Kentucky professional educators being paid to deliver education reform and improvement be held accountable for results?

Or, just answer this single question: What internal barriers within the KDE need removing to implement meaningful reforms that result in more Kentucky students earning their high school diplomas?