Why we need total quality management in education.

Author: Schargel, Franklin P.

Total Quality Management. Apr96, Vol. 7 Issue 2, p213-217. 5p.

Abstract Total quality management (TQM) came into existence because of crisis. At the end of World War II, the Japanese economy was destroyed, and so when TQM was offered to them, there was not much choice. The dramatic loss of market share by American industry in the 1960s provided the impetus for the adoption of TQM's return to its birthplace. The economy of the US is tied to the success of the products of the public school system. Data gathered by the American government and the United Nations indicate that American public education is & crisis. America will not succeed in the twenty-first century without a technologically prepared workforce. It no longer makes sense for American industry to cascade TQM into its public school system. It no longer makes sense for American industry to spend US$40 billion yearly retrofitting America's public school graduates with the tools and techniques of TQM. Now is the time to percolate total quality up from America's public schools.

In the 21st century, the education and skills of the work force [will] end up being the dominant competitive weapon.

Lester Thurow, Head to Head

The world is undergoing a dynamic change. Ten years ago who would have thought about the break-up of the Soviet Union or the formation of the European Union? No longer do companies compete solely in domestic markets. Brand names like Toyota, Swatch, BIC, Sony and Hitachi are as recognized in the UK as they are in Japan, Switzerland and France. Manufacturers, in order to compete in the global market-place, must depend on a well-trained, technologically prepared workforce. If they cannot find those workers at home, they will seek locations where they can find that labor supply.

Because of these world changes, education in the US is being forced to change. Many of the changes taking place are attempts to change parts of education or attempts to solve the symptoms, rather than the root causes of the problems of education. There are new buildings; many schools are using computers; green boards are replacing the traditional black slate of days gone by. But by and large, the educational system is being changed very little. Teachers still stand in front of classrooms. Students still face the front of the room, all copying information the teacher has written on chalkboards. Few proposals focus on systemic change.

Unfortunately, as the evidence increasingly shows, the US's public school graduates fall far short of those in the rest of the industrialized world. US graduates consistently score at the bottom or near the bottom of most standardized examinations. Imagine a business where one-third of the product is scrapped before it ever reaches the end of the production process. Imagine a business where the product reaching the end of the production process fails to satisfy the customer because it is incapable of doing what is required of it. This is a description of the US public school system of today.

Schools are failing to deliver the product that they have designed to produce--an educated individual. The schools are falling short by producing graduates incapable of reading, writing, doing math, thinking, coming on time and working cooperatively. If schools are incapable of producing their products, how then can industries produce theirs?

Why should the business community have to spend money training entry-level employees in skills that should have been acquired in high schools and colleges? It makes little sense for industry to retrofit American workers with total quality management (TQM) skills that can be acquired in schools. Dr Deming and the Japanese believe that education is the key to quality success. Is it not time to bring education into the paradigm shift?

At George Westinghouse Vocational and Technical High School, New York City's largest vocational and technical high school, we believe that quality improvement is the key to success in the US and our school. In 1988, we initiated the Westinghouse Education Quality Initiative--a programme to bring the concept of TQM into public education. The programme was originally sponsored by National Westminster Bank USA and later also by Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

George Westinghouse Vocational and Technical High School, located in the heart of downtown Brooklyn, New York, is in many ways a typical urban inner-city school. Seventy-five per cent of its students are black and 23% are Hispanic. Of the approximately 1800 students currently enrolled, females comprise 25% of the school's population. Many of our students come from single-parent, low-income families (62% live at poverty level or below). Most graduates will be the first in their families to obtain a high school diploma.

Although Westinghouse is open to all city residents, most of our students reside in the inner-city neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Westinghouse had problems typical of many inner-city schools: a high attrition rate, an aging faculty, students entering with poor reading and mathematical skills, a lack of pupil motivation and students with low self-esteem and a history of failure.

Our task is to respond to our many educational challenges by using TQM techniques used in the enlightened business community. When we began our programme at Westinghouse, we first implemented changes in our organizational structure and school climate. Currently our efforts are directed toward the improvement of our instructional process. We have come to realize that by identifying our errors, locating their causes and removing them, we can change the learning environment of the school.

Our initial pilot use of quality began in 1988 after the principal, Lewis A. Rappaport and a volunteer group of teachers took a quality training seminar conducted by National Westminster Bank USA. In addition, the bank conducted an all-day workshop for all the teachers at the school. As a result, the staff wrote a mission statement for the school:

The purpose of George Westinghouse Vocational and Technical High School is to provide quality vocational, technical, and academic educational programs that will maximize each student's full potential in today's changing technological society and prepare students to meet the challenges of our rapidly changing world. In an era of intense international competition, each student will be prepared to meet the demands of the world of work, pursue post-secondary education, and address life's challenges.

A quality coordinator was selected. His job is to design, develop and implement a systematic quality improvement process. The steering committee monitors the activities of the quality coordinator.

In order to institutionalize the process, a quality steering committee has been established. The role of our staff steering committee is to plan, monitor, evaluate and support the individuals, teams and committees implementing the quality improvement process. The committee meets weekly, on members' own time, after the school day has ended. The principal and quality coordinator are permanent members of the committee. A series of goals was identified and attention is being directed toward the improvement of specific areas. The committee serves in the leadership role of the quality improvement process. It is made up of various members of the staff, including teachers from every instructional department, our school's union leader, school secretaries, students and parents.

The first area targeted for improvement was staff morale. The staff decided to recognize and reward a quality staff member monthly. The staff member selected receives a plaque and his/her name goes on to our 'quality staff' bulletin board for all students, staff, parents and guests to see. As a result, staff morale has improved. We decided to expand this recognition and reward concept to quality students and each department began to select students monthly. In addition, Westinghouse Electric and National Westminster Bank USA annually fund scholarships for our most-improved graduating seniors.

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By January 1991, we were ready to immerse ourselves totally into the quality movement. Not having many educational models, we decided to benchmark the nation's leading enlightened industrial firms using TQM, including Colgate-Palmolive, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM, the Marriott Corporation, Motorola, National Westminster Bank USA, NYNEX and Xerox. They have been generous in sharing their expertise by training us in TQM techniques. On 30 January 1991, Mr Rappaport, our principal, stood before the faculty and stated, "As long as I am principal, this school will use TQM techniques and tools to address the challenges which we face".

Our first step was the building of a TQM foundation with the faculty. We developed and delivered several training workshops. With the training, participants became familiar with the quality philosophy, the actions, tools and techniques that will help us attain a better quality product and reduce failure. As a result of workshops the staff pinpointed 23 areas of concern that we would address. Every month the quality steering committee targets at least one problem area and directs our energies to removing its root causes. By systematically identifying errors, locating their causes and removing them, we are changing the atmosphere of the school for the better.

One of the staff's concerns was class cutting. By using TQM techniques and tools we were able to reduce cutting by 39.9% in a 6-week period. Our major on-going concern is class failure. On 30 January 1991, we identified 151 students who had failed every class. Again, using the tools and techniques provided by TQM, we were able to reduce the 151 to 11 by 30 June 1991 (an improvement of 92%).

We have since developed and delivered workshops to our students. We established a quality improvement leadership class for students so that we could begin involving students in the quality process. The class, composed of between 25 and 30 students, meets five days a week and informally serves as the student quality team. The team meets monthly with the principal and tries to locate ways to improve overall student performance at the school.

Recognizing that our parents are one of our internal customers, in September 1991 we surveyed them. We asked them when was the best day and time to hold parent meetings (in most schools, parents are told when meetings are being held). Traditionally, items discussed at parent-teachers association meetings are issues established by the educational institution. We identified issues that they wanted to discuss at these meetings.

As our internal customers (employees, parents and students) have become familiar with the quality philosophy, it is becoming internalized and our error factors are diminishing.

People from IBM were so impressed by what they saw after they toured the school that they offered to take members of the school for a weekend of TQ training in the executive training facilities in the New York Palisades. On Friday 15 May 1992, 46 of us (15 students, six parents and 25 staff) received IBM's customer driven quality training. Each constituency chose its own members. As a result, our parents and students have decided to join the quality steering committee.

In a year of successes, probably the greatest was when people from the Ricoh Corporation toured our school. They were so impressed with our students and our implementation of the TQM process that they have signed a partnership agreement with the school. Beginning in May 1994, Westinghouse students began repairing Ricoh photocopying machines.

In addition, as a result of our efforts in promoting quality concepts during the past 3 years, we have seen these significant changes:

* Our student drop-out rate has fallen to 2.1% (New York City's drop-out rate is 17.2%)

* Seventy-two per cent of our June 1993 graduates went on to college.

* Students have become more involved in the school. They provide peer tutoring and escort senior citizens on shopping tours. School extra-curricular activities have grown. We have added the following clubs: darts, chess, computers, leadership, math, optical, Asian and African-American culture.

* Membership of the parent-teachers association has grown from 12 in 1987 to 211 in 1991.

* Twenty-five (out of 150) faculty members--many with 20 or more years' experience--now participate in unpaid after-school brainstorming sessions.

* Interdepartmental meetings have been held. Members of the English and social studies departments have held a joint meeting to discuss how to coordinate learning programmes and how to implement writing across the curricula. The three trade departments have held joint meetings to coordinate ordering of supplies and discuss instructional problems which they jointly share.

* Teachers in our vocational and technical department have redesigned our ninth grade programme. Like most high schools, Westinghouse has more drop-outs from its entering class than any other. Our apprentice training programme pairs an entering freshman with a senior mentor. For 10 weeks, freshmen are assigned to seniors in shop classes. The ninth grader works side by side with the twelfth grader, who guides the ninth grader through class experiments. Freshmen pick up tenth and eleventh year skills, and the senior gets leadership responsibilities. Teachers say there is less boredom in the class, and thus less disruption and a lot more focus on work. As a result of the pilot year, 28 freshmen in the programme received 85% or better grades. Of an equal number of those not in the programme, 14 received 85% or better. Attendance of those in the programme was higher for those freshmen.

* Requests for admission to Westinghouse have increased. We currently have more than ten students applying for every one seat.

* The school has raised over U$2 000 000 in new or additional programmes and services. The school received several funding grants, including a New York Working Grant that assures the school of U$143 000 a year for 3 years to establish a year-round on-site employment office. Westinghouse was one of only six New York City high schools, and the only vocational school, to receive this grant. The school recently received five IBM computers to be used to further the TQM effort.

* Pratt Institute, Polytechnic University and New York City Technical College have agreed to run a coordinated programme with Westinghouse High School. Project Care allows our students to take courses at the colleges while they are still attending Westinghouse. Our 2 + 2 Tech Prep programme is a college preparatory program.

* Business school advisory councils have been established in the electronics, woodworking and optical areas. Council members--from business, industry and the faculty--meet regularly with the principal and staff to suggest ways to upgrade our programmes and make our students more employable. The school has also been visited by numerous business leaders who have donated equipment and supplies.

* We have just developed a curriculum to motivate intrinsically our students to 'do the best you can--be the best you can be'.

Like most organizations in the midst of quality improvement, we could best be described as a work in progress. We have made major gains identifying our internal and external customers. Our staff, parents and external customers are aware of our efforts toward implementing TQM. We have taken a few steps in the process of problem-solving and improvement and those will continue. Perhaps the most important thing we have learned it that we are on the right track because the process works and that it is here to stay. It is not a 'this too will pass' phenomenon, nor the current 'flavor of the week'. Instead, we recognize that TQM is a proven process being used by industry worldwide to change fundamentally the methods of doing business in order to make the best use of its resources and realize the greatest human potential.

We are not finished. We never will be! The road ahead is longer than the road behind. There is a need for continued staff training and an increased involvement from parents and students. We must find ways to involve the staff, students, parents and business leaders in making suggestions to improve the educational conditions at Westinghouse. Our students and parents must develop techniques to set quality standards. We must integrate the goals of the quality improvement process into our day-to-day and long-range customer service activities. We need continually to remind ourselves that the process is not a separate function or add-on to our normal jobs, but is a method all of us can use to meet the requirements of each of our internal and external customers.

If we are to have a skilled and dedicated workforce, then the concept of quality must filter up from the schools, not cascade down from industry. Our effort will not revolutionize the US educational system, at least not by itself. What it does do is provide a beginning that any school, teacher or parent can undertake today, using existing resources.

The re-emergence of any nation's business has to be predicated on the success or failure of its educational system. If the educational system fails to deliver qualified graduates as workers, then the business community will have three choices: to educate the new workers at a cost of billions of dollars, to accept the shoddy results or to remove all industrial production from the nation. Total quality education, the third wave of quality, offers the business community a fourth alternative.

DMU Timestamp: February 03, 2020 23:30

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Feb 8

2020 Abraham Gaucin 2020 Abraham Gaucin (Feb 08 2020 6:50PM) : Abstract more

The US economy is linked to the production of successful student in the public school system. American public schools are at crisis and America will not succeed if schools are not preparing students for the future.

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