It's time once again for Quality Digest's annual look at quality in education.
This year we've taken a more hands-on approach to quality in education by
examining how individual schools are using quality techniques.
Our education series kicks off with a message from U.S. Secretary of Education
Richard Riley. The news is grim. The U.S. Department of Education faces
the same anti-government fervor that's sweeping the country. Riley points
out that narrow-minded budget choppers may render extinct the very programs
that could reinvent education. No political party can dispute the need for
a government that works better and costs less, yet government still hasn't
learned the lesson that saved industry: quality saves money.
Next, we take a broad look at how the United States and the United Kingdom
integrate quality principles into the education community. The U.K. system
is much more centrally controlled, which has advantages and disadvantages
in implementing total quality into the curriculum.
Then we have our annual education resource directory. Even though the number
of resources for quality in education grows, actual application has not
entered the mainstream of the education community.
Our next article shows how statistical process control improves attendance
rates at an Arizona high school. Principal Sharron Walker and her crew at
Baboquivari High School prove that SPC isn't just for manufacturing as they
track common and special causes of variation in high school attendance rates.
The staff learn more than just number-crunching skills as a new sense of
teamwork emerges from their efforts.
Our final education article examines how total quality principles helped
a Minnesota school district pass a twice-defeated referendum to build new
facilities for an overcrowded student population. The application of quality
principles in a school-community team effort is inspiring.
How does all of this affect you? Although most of our readers do not work
in education, I encourage you to read these articles. Not only are your
sons and daughters the product of our education process, they are also your
future employees.
But, beyond mere concern for your future employees, industry can learn valuable
lessons from education. Manufacturers have benchmarked against service providers
and vice versa; why not benchmark against schools? What lessons can education
teach? Well, schools manage a diverse group of individuals with differing
goals and objectives. Much like today's corporations. Schools have many
conflicting customers: students, parents, the community, the government
and future employers. Again, like many of today's corporations. And, perhaps
most important, schools have highly educated, highly trained professionals
working for them that they manage to retain usually for a lifetime. Think
of the lessons corporations could learn in that area alone.
We'd like you to teach us a lesson as well. Tell us what you think of this
issue. Simply fill out and fax back the "Tell Us What You Think"
form found on page 20. It's our way of continually improving our product.
Scott Madison Paton
Editor in Chief