In January and February, I outlined six common management myths. The point of those two posts was to help education systems leaders see what not to do. I’m now turning to a set of principles that can be used by these same leaders to guide their transformation work. Last month, I introduced the 14 Principles for Educational Systems Transformation. In this post I’ll describe the third principle, Cease Dependence on Inspection to Achieve Quality. It is worth noting that the 14 Principles are mutually supporting, so it is important to understand all of them rather than studying them in isolation. An in-depth discussion of the Principles for Transformation can be found in Chapter 3 of my recently released book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools.

Principle 3: Cease dependence on standardized testing to achieve quality, and work to abolish grading and the harmful effects of rating people. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis (i.e., standardized testing) by building quality into the product in the first place. The product in education systems is high-quality learning.

There are two different concepts to deal with in Principle 3, standardized testing and grading, and the prescription is different for each following W. Edward Deming’s teachings. Close reading of the 14 Principles is paramount because Dr. Deming chose his words very carefully. If your initial reaction to these requirements is to scoff or laugh, then this demonstrates how far away your standards are from those which he demanded.

Is Deming saying that we should abolish inspection using standardized tests or assessment in general? No, of course not. After all, without assessment we would not be able to answer the critical question, “How are we doing?” However, our sector is overly reliant on mass inspection (i.e., state testing) as the way of life to try to ensure that customers of the education system get some type of quality. Principle 3 calls for eliminating dependence on standardized and other tests as the sole measure of quality, not for their elimination altogether. There is a tremendous difference between mass testing as an attempt to provide the customer with something they won’t complain about and the use of assessments to provide guidance toward improvement of a learning process. Mass inspection through testing is costly and generally unproductive as it aims to sort out good from bad but does not contribute to progress. Beyond the cost and unproductive nature of mass inspection through testing, it also introduces the idea of a supposedly acceptable level of defectives. The goal for state testing in grades 3-8 in Ohio is for 80% of students to meet the proficiency standard, which means that one in five students will not meet the standard. This is a direct contradiction to the philosophy of continual improvement. The Deming philosophy is to build quality into the process in the first place. Quality does not come from inspection, but from going upstream to the improvement of teaching and learning processes. Classroom assessments are a much better tool for identifying these upstream processes. Deming said that the system of make-and-inspect if applied to toast would be expressed, “You burn, I’ll scrape”[1], which is obviously an unacceptable approach when dealing with anything involving the education of our children. 

Turning to grading, Deming did not suggest that we merely cease dependence on grades, but that we abolish them. It is worth noting that this has nothing to do with making things easier for students nor does it have anything to do with low-scoring students’ self-esteem. Instead, it is based on the more fundamental premise that we want students to experience success and failure on school work as information rather than as reward and punishment. Grades are inherently about experiencing things as reward and punishment. When author Alfie Kohn completed a comprehensive review of the research literature on grades that compared students who got grades to those who didn’t, he found three robust differences. First, kids who are graded tend to become less interested in the topic they are studying. This includes the specific topic as well as the subject-area in general, such as math or writing, compared to students that get the identical assignment but with no grades involved. Second, kids who are graded, when they have a choice to pick, pick the easiest possible task. If the point is to get a high grade, it is rational to pick the easiest book or assignment. Grades inherently lead students to avoid intellectual risk-taking. Third, kids who are graded are more likely to think in a superficial or shallow fashion, and more likely to ask questions like, “Do we have to know this?” as opposed to more thoughtful questions about the content itself.[2]

It is this fundamental displacement of priority from the learning to the grade that is at the heart of both Deming’s and Kohn’s philosophy in this area. The specific losses from grading practices are unknown and unknowable, but very likely catastrophic.

Blog Series: 14 Principles for Educational Systems Transformation

The four components of the System of Profound Knowledge work in concert to provide us with profound insights about how our organizations operate so that leaders can in turn work to optimize the whole of our systems. However, there is a step beyond simply avoiding the management myths. The next step is to be able to think and make decisions using the lens provided by the System of Profound Knowledge. This is where the core set of 14 Principles come into play. In this series, I’m describing the principles that will enable you to move from theory to practice with the Deming philosophy.

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John A. Dues is the Chief Learning Officer for United Schools Network, a nonprofit charter management organization that supports four public charter schools in Columbus, Ohio. He is also the author of the newly released book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools. Send feedback to jdues@unitedschoolsnetwork.org. 

Notes

1. Joseph Sensenbrenner, “Quality Comes to City Hall,” Harvard Business Review, March-April 1991, https://hbr.org/1991/03/quality-comes-to-city-hall.

2. “Schools and Grading,” September 8, 2021, in Munk Debates, Season 2, Episode 42, produced by Stuart Coxe, hosted by Rudyard Griffiths, podcast, 51:07, munkdebates.com/podcast/schools-and-grading.