Do you remember that amazing class you took in college, with the professor that everyone was talking about? You looked forward to it each week and you were actually inspired by the subject matter. You probably even remember some of what you learned in that class today, decades later.

One of the things I remember about that class is that I didn’t have to slave away in the library reading hundreds of pages each week. By paying attention to the lectures I was able to absorb the critical material. Did I spend hours researching and writing papers? Of course. But when it came time to take the exams, I knew the important points cold.

This situation isn’t so different when you think about your child’s experience in school today. Talented, competent teachers find they have plenty of time during school hours to cover the curriculum. Homework is designed to reinforce the day’s lesson, and it enforces necessary skills such as reading and writing that require practice.

What happens when your child has an inexperienced teacher? A teacher who spends more time on discipline than on the curriculum? A downright terrible teacher? Do terrible teachers use homework as a band-aid to mask mediocre teaching?

“There is no doubt that I dish out much less homework today than I did 20 years ago when I began teaching,” a private high school history teacher told me. “I was under the impression that giving a lot of homework was a sign of being a better, tougher teacher. Back then, my students probably also needed to learn some of the material at home. I just didn’t do nearly as good a job teaching the material as I do today.”

As educators hotly debate whether our children are receiving too much or too little homework, everyone — teachers, principals and researchers — can agree that the report published last week by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, “Tough Choices or Tough Times,” underscores what so many have known for so long: The American school system needs a serious overhaul.

Critics of too much homework view this new report as a vindication of what they have been saying for years.

“The truth is that the majority of American kids are not being served well in school today,” a co-author of “The Case Against Homework” (Crown), Nancy Kalish, said. “What happens after school just isn’t the issue. Homework is not an antidote for poor teaching. What we really need is better teaching during the day and good after-school programs for kids with working parents.”

The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, thinks that the increase in homework is a result of misguided policies that dictate a glut of academic assessments. “Our kids are doing way too much homework,” she said. “With all of these assessments every six weeks, there is just simply not enough time for teaching and learning in the classroom. And homework isn’t a substitute for this.”

Our city’s top educator, though, a panelist on the New Skills Commission, Chancellor Joel Klein, doesn’t think that New York City public school students are receiving too much homework. “Homework works,” he said. “And by the way, everyone seems to forget that we all did it.”

“The debate over homework is somewhat precious,” Mr. Klein added. “I keep saying the same thing over and over again. The magic equation in education is the quality of the teachers. We need to rethink the way we finance education and operate our schools. We need to align the incentives so that the talent — the teachers — is rewarded.”

The Commission’s proposals address Mr. Klein’s concerns. They include authorizing school districts to pay private companies to run schools, enrolling many students in college after the 10th grade, creating a universal pre-kindergarten classroom for 4-year-olds, assessing teachers frequently, and dramatically increasing their salaries.

The best news about this report is that it finally acknowledges that if we don’t make changes in the education system soon, there will be a decline in our high quality of life. Our public school system has sadly become the world’s poster child for mediocrity.

Mr. Klein is right: The critical issue should not be how much homework our children are receiving. This country should be doing all it can to make teaching jobs attractive to its best and brightest. If the best and brightest were teachers, then our children wouldn’t need to be doing hours upon hours of homework each night. And giving our children back free time? That is precious.