Edward Deming on Ed Reform #1

Over the years, I’ve written many postings and letters about using business models to reform education.  My primary thrust has always been that doing so ignores the fact that thousands of businesses, presumed to be using good business practices, fail every year. 

Today, I found an article that takes a different focus.  I’m going to share quotes from the article in a series of postings and you can find the link at the bottom.   The article is written by Dale Rogers, a 32 year veteran of classroom teaching, a National Board Certified teacher, and a perennial presenter at conferences.  It was posted on Nancy Flannagan’s Teacher in a Strange Land blog on Education Week. 

“Our country has attempted to fix education with recommendations beginning in 1983 as a reaction to the A Nation At Risk report, then in the 1990's with Goals 2000, continuing with No Child Left Behind in 2001, and finally in 2009 with the Race To The Top initiative.” (Emphasis is mine)

“None of these fixes considered the quality ideas of Edwards Deming . If we continue to ignore quality ideas such as Deming's, we will never truly succeed in meeting the challenges of education reforms in the 21st century.”

“Deming is best known for his 14 points of quality management. Deming and his principles were instrumental in working to improve the quality of Japanese manufacturing after World War II.”

“For some reason, however, the Deming strategies of quality that businesses utilize are all but ignored when trying to improve education in America.”