Deming philosophy in educ LO8707

Robert Bacal (dbt359@freenet.mb.ca)
Mon, 29 Jul 1996 00:48:40 +0000

Replying to LO8693 --

I agree that Quality improvement techniques are and can be applied to
education, but the issues are not as "clean"as with inanimate objects.

On 28 Jul 96 at 0:03, Jim Clauson wrote:
> As is the case in many post-secondary systems, our
> "rework" rate is about 65% - 65% of our incoming students require
> *some* form of remedial work.
>
> This is *not* to reduce variation in our student body (re: comments
> in previous LO thread postings).

I wonder what it IS for, if not to bring students up to a common entrance
level so that they can deal with the new curriculum? That would indeed be
reducing variation of the incoming resources.

> Following the philosophy of Dr.
> Deming, we educators understand that learning differences and
> diversity are part of Deming's win/win process.

This is where it gets quite weird, because the product of education is
very confused as are its consumers. While I think Deming would suggest the
value of differences and diversity among employees, he would not laud the
value of difference and diversity among the inputs or outputs of the
system. So, the question is, what is the product of the school system? If
the product is educated students, then the that would suggest that we want
to reduce the variation in the product. That seems a bit counter-intuitive
as applied to people.

In a sense, TQM should INCREASE the variation of the educational product,
which is counter to the application of the techniques to physical
products.

> 3. RE: Grading - Unfortunately, the grading curve *is* alive in
> many to most educational systems. The 400 year old educational
> paradigm is rooted on this forced ranking of students. The good
> news is that some of us are challenging this system.

In most cases the grading curve is largely indefensible statistically, but
one of the reasons it is used is that it "compensates"for poor testing and
evaluation processes, which is the same problem, in a sense in performance
management systems.

> 4. Deming & statistics - I think that far too many people associate
> Deming's philosophy with *only* statistics. His *System* of
> Profound Knowledge is truly holistic and universal. I also believe
> that it dovetails well with Senge's Learning Organizations.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that there are two faces to Deming--the
statistical SPC side (which I think isn't grasped by everybody),and the
people side, which I think is grasped more easily, and is more broadly
trumpeted. I see Juran as hanging on the SPC sie, side and Crosby more on
the people side, though I am making a somewhat arbitrary dichotomy here.

Robert Bacal, CEO, Institute For Cooperative Communication
dbt359@freenet.mb.ca, Located in Winnipeg,Canada.
*For articles on management, change, training,communication, etc,
visit our home page at: http://www.winnipeg.freenet.mb.ca~dbt359

-- 

"Robert Bacal" <dbt359@freenet.mb.ca>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>