I have worked for systemic change in education for 20 years and have failed often. The completeness of W. Edwards Deming's view has given me renewed hope (Deming 1986, 1993). If educators endorse Alfie Kohn's surface message about TQM, I fear that we will miss an opportunity to professionalize American education.
Unfortunately, Kohn's important message—that if we are serious about improving education, we need to think about the theories behind what we do in schools—is lost. Rather, educators who fear business meddling in schools will likely chalk up this article by a very credible authority as evidence that TQM and education don't mix. And yet TQM has much to offer.
The Whys of TQM
In a vastly changing global economy, companies are finding that hierarchical models, which tap little of the mental talents of most workers, won't allow them to remain competitive. One response is to accept a new view of organizations in which knowledge is not just another resource like labor, land, and capital but, rather, is the only meaningful resource today (Drucker 1992). Senge (1990) points to the need for companies to become learning organizations in which workers are able to recognize patterns, synthesize disparate information, identify problems, and construct solutions.
Indeed, the human capacities that companies are beginning to realize their workers need are the very qualities humanistic educators have supported all along as outcomes of schooling. Self-regulated learning, construction of knowledge, and self-efficacy (learning qualities valued by Kohn) are some of the capacities that underlie the move to true worker empowerment. I believe that alive, learning organizations are much better environments to foster the talents of educators and bring joy to their work than are today's school bureaucracies.
Deming's Contribution
Deming's ideas on Quality set in place the conditions for the development of learning organizations that nurture people. When Kohn asserts that helping workers acquire skills is rarely a goal in its own right, he is missing some important trends in corporate leadership (for example, Robert Greenleaf's Servant Leadership, 1977, which contends that the main function of leaders is to develop workers).
Further, Deming's system of profound knowledge—the interaction of theories of systems, knowledge, psychology, and variation—is a model of how educated people can grapple with life's complexities. Kohn seems to be particularly critical of education's use of TQM's practices in data collection and in reducing variation. And yet, using numbers is a powerful way of knowing, and reducing variation is what today's educational equity conversation is about.
For example, at the end of our two-year effort to redesign primary language arts in Minnesota (Sambs and Schenkat 1990), we looked at 2nd grade reading results. Using holistic performance assessment, we found that upper quartile scoring was 97 percent while lower quartile scoring was 88 percent. From old grading paradigms, these results reflect progress in equity as all students, Chapter 1 and Special Education too, begin to attain high standards. The use of data also suggests a means of public accountability for all ranges of learners. Continuous improvement was possible because of the numerous levels of data available before this year-end synthesis.
Perhaps the greatest opportunity that Deming's Quality transformation offers is to alter the way that schools as organizations work for adults, a point Kohn overlooks. Having studied teacher training and its general education applications for six years, I suggest that one reason educators, along with most business people, have difficulty applying Deming's principles is because we are conditioned to look for quick answers and not the theories that can guide our actions (Schenkat et al. 1985). The “baglady phenomenon”—that of teacher education candidates seeking more “methods” for their bag of tricks—perpetuates a mentality that lacks theory or rationale (Goodlad 1990). Learning without theory, says Deming, is pointless.
We need to transform our ways of knowing—about teaching and learning, about our content, and about systems and theory. While Kohn chides that we've lost sight of the purpose of education, I suggest that we've never clearly understood it. Nor have our actions been guided by theory in fostering students' education. Rather, educators have been part of a system of learning that has denied us from exercising the very qualities we say we want in children, the ability to construct our own learning.
A Deeper Understanding of Change
If educators are to transform American education in the ways necessary to prepare students to flourish in the new high-performance organizations, we will need an incredible amount of support from the public. Business and community leaders who are involved in significant Quality transformations (not just “into TQM,” as Kohn makes us aware) understand the time and focused effort it takes to change an organization (Garvin 1991). As we embark on long-term, extensive change efforts, we need to find allies and champions in these leaders.
While Kohn raises many red flags about using the nomenclature of business, I believe that if we know what we're about educationally, it can be worthwhile to use the other camp's terminology. The application of illustrations, analogies, and metaphors to make the subject comprehensible is the heart of pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman 1986).
In addition to gaining the support of community leaders through the use of the Quality lens, gaining parents' support for educational change might be easier if we can talk about issues in terms that they understand. Recently, for example, when our local university president asked 100 parents how many were involved with TQM at their workplaces, the vast majority raised their hands. Given financial realities, we will need to “sell” parents on the notion of teachers' spending less face-to-face time with students so that they have more time to be reflective practitioners. Our task will be much easier if we can use an analogy with which many parents are familiar—that productivity rises when team members have time away from the production line to solve problems.
All the Pieces in Place
Deming's system of profound knowledge applies to any type of organization, but to successfully apply his ideas, an organization needs a deep understanding of its own business. As educators, we need to be aware of how teaching and learning—our core technologies—are being informed by educational research. As Kohn rightly points out, few TQM promoters are serious about applying findings from cognitive science. They're content with making the carburetor better when what we need is fuel-injected engines.
Deming's idea of knowing our extended processes is another reason this “business model” applies to schools. We need to better understand our suppliers and customers, both external and internal. For example, what is the 2nd grade teacher doing that builds on students' experience in 1st grade?
Today, educators are inundated with countless “answers”: active learning, constructing meaning, teaching for conceptual change, cooperative learning, systems thinking, authentic assessment. Faced with such a dizzying array of innovations, our challenge is to make the many pieces work together. For example, we must guard against becoming schools that are whole-language or cooperative learning without an understanding of how all the pieces of schools must work in a fine synergy—what Deming calls optimizing the system.
Kohn makes it abundantly clear there are some shortsighted approaches to TQM today. I agree. But rather than rejecting TQM in its entirety as just another business fad, I encourage an openness to Deming's thinking. His principles, if deeply understood, have the potential to transform society in all of its sectors—commerce, government, and education. We can't afford to miss this opportunity.
