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Introduction:
There are three categories of educational standards that guide Ohio schools. These are Academic, Performance and School Operating Standards. The following "Baldrige Packets" highlight the relationship between Ohio's new Operating Standards for public schools, adopted in December, 2000, and the Baldrige criteria that will be used to evaluate school and district operation effective February 18, 2001. Comments or observations on the Baldrige Criteria by Dr. Doug Brooks are in italics. The 2001 Operating Standards are important because they create a legislative framework for school and districts to become high performing organizations and they include key provisions of the law. The legal purpose of Chapter 3301-35 of the Ohio Revised Code is to insure that students are provided a general education of high quality (nothing new here), establish expectancy for creating the best condition of learning (nothing new here either), and incorporate the principals of high performing organizations (this is new!). Chapter 3301-35 of the Ohio Revised Code is structured into fourteen areas. Sections 3301-02 through 3307-07 reflect the Baldrige categories and criteria for high performance.
The key themes of the new 2001 Operating Standards are the following:
1) The primary focus is on learning, not teaching.
2) The focus on engaging and involving the persons in the educational process who have the greatest impact on learning. These stake holders include administrators, faculty, non-certified staff and parents.
3) The aligning of vision and practice at all levels.
4) The importance of data-driven decisions based on concrete evidence and information about student performance and organizational performance.
5) The creation of safe environments in which learning can occur including a physically safe, caring environment for students and a high performance learning organization.
6) The greater freedom for districts to make decisions about implementation strategies and organizational practices to improve performance.
The State of Ohio now has new, legislatively approved, "Operating Standards for Ohio Schools" expressed in Chapter 3301-35 of the Ohio Administrative Code. 3301-35-11 The "Procedures for Evaluation and Intervention" state the following:
(A)"A school district or school shall be evaluated in accordance with Section 3302.04 of the Revised Code and rules 3301-50-01 and 3301-56-01 of the Administrative Code."
(B) All districts and schools shall conduct a comprehensive review of their educational programs and organizational effectiveness to determine whether they are aligned with Ohio Law, all applicable federal laws and the district's locally defined mission statement, goals, objectives and strategic plan.
This change in legislation has dramatically changed the process and expectations for school and district reviews. Rule 3301-35-01 through Rule 3301-35-07 legislatively implement the language of Total Quality Management (TQM) and Baldrige Criteria. These rules place a new expectation on self-assessment and systems-based continuous improvement.
The current State Superintendent for Public Instruction, Dr. Susan Tave-Zelman made official application to become a Baldrige state and offered the state's educational system up for evaluation against Baldrige Criteria in the near future. The Ohio Department of Education was charged with implementing these new expectations. ODE contracted with Shipley and Associates to join three other states as "Baldrige" states (Texas, Florida, and Indiana). Large group training is currently underway in many parts of Ohio under the supervision of regional Technical Support Coordinators. Examples from Pinellas County Schools in Florida are included in the large group training currently being done in Ohio. This document and subsequent documents posted on First Class Client are intended to complement, not replace, ODE/Shipley and Associates training with a collaborative learning network access model hosted on Darke, Shelby and Preble county-wide ESC hosted networks featuring First Class Client messaging software.
Who was Malcolm Baldrige?
Malcolm Baldrige was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He worked during his boyhood as a ranch hand and earned several awards as a professional team roper on the rodeo circuit. He graduated from Yale University with a Bachelors degree in 1944. During World War II, Baldrige served in combat in the Pacific as Captain in the 27th Infantry Division. Baldrige began his career in the manufacturing industry in 1947 as a foundry hand in an iron company in Connecticut and rose to the Presidency in that company by 1960. Malcolm Baldrige was nominated to be the 26th Secretary of Commerce by President Ronald Reagan on December 11, 1980 and confirmed by the Senate on January 22, 1981. During his tenure, Baldrige played a major role in developing and carrying out administration trade policy. He took a lead in resolving difficulties in technology transfers with China and India. Baldrige held the first cabinet level talks with the Soviet Unionin seven years that paved the way for increased access for U.S. firms to the Soviet market. He was highly regarded by the world's most preeminent leaders. Baldrige's award winning managerial excellence contributed to the long-term improvement in economy, efficiency and effectiveness of government. Within the Commerce Department, Baldrige reduced the budget by more than 30% and administrative personnel by 25%.
Malcolm Baldrige's service as Secretary of Commerce was one of the longest in history. He is said to have been one of the most colorful Secretaries of Commerce and one of the most beloved. He was "Professional Rodeo Man of the Year" in 1980 and was installed in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in 1984. Malcolm Baldrige died July 25, 1987in a rodeo accident in California.
What Are The Total Quality Management (TQM) Concepts?
- The basic assumptions of the "Quality Philosophy" are that:
1) people want to be successful
2) people want to do the right thing
- It is leadership's responsibility to:
1) create a workplace in which the workers can be successful
2) help people do a better job
3) demonstrate an unshakeable commitment to quality
- Variation exists in all processes.
- Fix or blame the system, not the people.
- In all high performing systems, there is interdependence among components.
- Optimization orchestrates the effort of all components of a system toward achievement of the stated aim.
- Constancy of purpose is necessary in achieving high performance.
- There are internal and external customers for every organization.
- Customers are process specific.
- The customer-supplier relationship is dynamic.
- The Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle (PDSA) is the process of continual improvement. This is also expressed as the Assess Plan Do Verify cycle (APDV). In either case, what is important is that all four components are in place and that this "quality cycle" is applied in all parts of an organization.
- The transformation of a system is a slow process. The expected time is 5-7 years for the entire system to be unconsciously competent in the systems approach to high performance.
What Was The Edward Deming influence on Malcolm Baldrige?
Malcolm Baldrige became fascinated with the work of Edward Deming and Total Quality Management. W. Edward Deming received his doctorate in mathematical physics from Yale Universityin 1928. He conducted a worldwide consulting practice for more than forty years. His clients included manufacturing companies, telephone companies, railways, carriers of motor freight, consumer researchers, census methodologists, hospitals, legal firms, government agencies, universities and industry. He led a sweeping quality revolution that is improving the competitive position of theUnited States. Deming received the National Medal of Technology from Ronald Reagan in 1987.
Deming is perhaps best known for his work in Japan, where from 1950 and onward he taught top management and engineers' methods of management of quality. This teaching dramatically altered the economy of Japan. Union of Japanese Science and Engineering (JUSE) introduced the Deming Prize in 1951. He is the author of several books and over 171 papers. His four-day seminars reached 10,000 people per year for over ten years. In 1983, Dr. Deming was elected to the Science and Technology Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio
It was Deming's belief that organizations should "improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease cost." He was a harsh critic of the "management by objective" philosophy and a champion of embedded programs for education and self-improvement. He believed that the naturally occurring barriers between departments, and levels of an organization should be eliminated and replaced with a system-wide commitment to shared best practice, effective leadership and collaborative problem solving. W. Edward Deming found a ready audience for his theories on production, quality and service in the post World War II Japanese industrial reconstruction. W. Edward Deming passed in 1993.
What is The Baldrige Award?
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act of 1987 established the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award inside Public Law 100-107. This act was signed into law onAugust 20, 1987. Public Law 100-107 led to the creation of a new public-private partnership. Principal support comes from the Foundation for the National Quality Award, established in 1988. U.S. Public Law 100-107 states, "The concept of quality improvement is directly applicable to small companies as well as large, to service industries as well as manufacturing, and to the public sector as well as private enterprise." It was the belief of the architects of the law that a national quality award program of this kind in the United States would help improve quality and productivity by:
(1) Stimulating American companies to improve quality and productivity
(2) Recognize the achievements of those companies that improve the quality of goods and services and provide an example to others
(3)Establish guidelines and criteria that can be used to evaluate their own quality improvement efforts
(4) Provide specific guidance for other American organizations that wish to learn how to manage for high quality by making available detailed information on how winning organizations were able to change their cultures and achieve eminence.
Why Are You Getting "Baldriged" Using Collaborative Learning Networks and Baldrige Packets?
In 1985 Partners In Learning (A Miami University-based partnership project directed by Dr. Douglas Brooks) was chosen as one of Ohio's fourteen original SchoolNet Prototypes. The prototype connected over 350 K-12 teachers in the Talawanda School District and Tri-Village School districtusing GTE wiring, Centrinity's First Class Client messaging software and Apple computers. In 1999, the impact of this collaborative learning network was reported in one of twelve Transforming Learning Communities case studies. This case study, "Teacher Leaders, Trust and Technology" appeared in a State of Ohio series directed by ODE's Linda Nusbaum. This series of ten case studies was distributed to every Ohio school district superintendent in 1999. The success of the Partners In Learning/SchoolNet Prototype was translated to the Darke County Educational Service Center, under the leadership of John C. Montgomery, Superintendent of the Darke County ESC, Lois Bunger, Director of Technology at the ESC and Carl Jones, Director of Curriculum. Systematically prototyped in all seven Darke county school systems between 1997-98, this intranet became known as "DarkeNet." DarkeNet has been selected as one of four recipients of a 2001 Ohio's BEST Award for Break through Practice.
A similar collaborative learning network was then hosted by the Shelby County ESC under the leadership of Mary Lou Holly, Superintendent of the Shelby County ESC, and Tom Reed, now Superintendent of Jackson Center Schools. This county-wide intranet became known as "ShelbyNet." Boyd Marcum, the current Superintendent of the Shelby County ESC and Jo Demotte now watch over "ShelbyNet." In 2001, the Preble County ESC, under the leadership of Superintendent Mike Raymond and George Henry prototyped "PrebleNet" in the Preble County ESC in cooperation with National Trail Schools, under the leadership of Superintendent Mike Trego. Supporting Senate Bill 55 using collaborative learning networks became a shared vision. CLN's are, in fact, "Quality Tools." They can be used to introduce and support the new Ohio Operating Standards for Schools and Baldrige concepts, systems and evaluation language. The school improvement leadership teams in each of the three ESC's concluded that "Baldrige thinking" could be advanced effectively by valuing the adult learning styles of teachers and administrators. In short, this three county (Darke, Shelby and Preble) school improvement team concluded that they could be "models of systemic thinking" as they sought to support individual district and school high performance thinking.
The "Baldrige Packet" just seemed like a good idea to everyone. They were developed over the summer of 2001 between golf games, guests and good times by Dr. Doug Brooks. They were reviewed and improved online. They seek to combine roughly ten different documents/packets/binders that have been part of the Ohio Department of Education orientation on the 2001 Operating Standards, the text of the standards, background on Total Quality Management and Malcolm Baldrige and Shipley Associates/Pinellas County, Florida training materials. What is unique about the Baldrige Packets is that all the content has been organized by sections in the new Operating Standards. Think of it as "One Stop Baldriging." If you are interested inBaldrige Leadership, you can get an orientation, new standard features, new standard content, reflective questions, district implications, evaluation criteria, classroom applications and a summary. This content does not read like a "page turner" but, it is organized to help you learn and apply "Baldrige thinking" in the context of your current work. And you get to make contributions to the content and ask questions online!
How is Each Section Organized?
Boldfaced words and phrases particularly reflect the language of Total Quality Management and the Baldrige criteria.
Comments by Dr. Douglas Brooks, Director of Partners In Learning, TSC for Darke, Shelby and Preble counties and professor at Miami University are in italics.
Each of the six "Baldrige Packets" has the following sections:
1) Introduction
2) New Featuresof the 2001 Operating Standards (by each section of the Ohio Revised Code)
3) What is Differentin (Baldrige Criteria) Between the 1983 Minimum Standards and the 2001 Operating Standards for Ohio Schools.
4) The Expectations in the 2001 Ohio Operating Standards
5) What is Baldrige in Your District?
6) Key Baldrige Questions to Use as Quality Reflective Tools.
7) How is Baldrige Evaluated?
8) Baldrige in the Classroom
(9) Summing Up
(10) Prompt to the next section.
Now, you can just work your way through the Baldrige Packets as you wish.........
The Six Baldridge Packets
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