Adopt and institute leadership aimed at helping people to do a better job. Management's responsibility must shift from focusing solely on outcomes to focusing on the quality of learning experiences and services produced by the educational system.
Read MoreInstitute thorough job-related training for students, teachers, staff, and management, so that everyone can make better contributions to the system. New skills are required to keep up with changes in cognitive science, curricula, methods, learning experience design, technology, teaching techniques, services, etc.
Read MoreCommon management myths (see here and here) must be replaced by sound guiding principles. In this post, I’ll describe the fifth such principle, Work Continually on the System. It is worth noting that the 14 Principles for Educational Systems Transformation are mutually supporting, so it is important to understand all of them rather than studying them in isolation. An in-depth discussion of the full set of 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.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreIn 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 second principle, Adopt the New Philosophy.
Read MoreIn 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. Earlier this month, I introduced the 14 Principles for Educational Systems Transformation. In this post I’ll describe the first principle, Create Constancy of Purpose.
Read MoreIn 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. I’ll kick things off this month with a brief introduction and a bit of background information regarding the 14 Principles for Educational Systems Transformation. From there, I’ll describe each of the principles through twice monthly posts from April through November.
Read MoreOver the last two months, I described six common management myths W. Edwards Deming worked to dispel. In January, I tackled the myth of best practices, the myth of the hero educator, and the myth of performance appraisal. In February, I turned to another set of three myths including the myth of merit pay, the myth of accountability, and the myth of extrinsic motivators. The point of these two posts was to help education systems leaders see what not to do. I’m now going to turn to a set of 14 Principles that can be used by educational leaders to guide their transformation work. I’ll kick things off this month with an introduction to the Principles for Transformation. After this introduction, I’ll write twice monthly posts describing each principle.
Read MoreLast month, I described three common management myths W. Edwards Deming worked to dispel. These included the myth of best practices, the myth of the hero educator, and the myth of performance appraisal. I cautioned that it is important to keep in mind that you may very well experience some cognitive dissonance as you read. There is a counterintuitive thread to much of the Deming philosophy, which of course makes sense given that he advocated for a change in state from the prevailing system of management to something better. This month, I’ll unpack the myth of merit pay, the myth of accountability, and the myth of extrinsic motivators.
Read MoreLast month, I posed the following question - Do we really need to transform our education system? - and posited that any attempts at transformation needed to sit on top of a solid philosophical foundation. The purpose of this blog post is to make the case for transformation from the prevailing style of management to the philosophy developed by W. Edwards Deming across a lifetime of continual improvement work. It is on this foundation that our education system should stand rather than constantly shifting in the wind based on management mythology, the latest testing data points, and political pet projects.
Read MoreThere are frequent calls for transformation and reform in the education sector going back decades. As a starting point, I’m going to examine two reports -- one well-known (“A Nation at Risk”) and the other lesser so (the “Sandia Report”) -- that attempt to answer the question posed in the title. Over the next several posts, I will offer my own thoughts as to the need for educational transformation (spoiler alert, I think it is necessary). In those future articles, I’ll provide a definition for transformation as well as a description for what exactly we would be transforming from and what we would be transforming to. But first, let’s dive into those two reports.
Read MoreThe four components of the System of Profound Knowledge interact with each other and cannot be separated. For example, as outlined in last month’s post, the Theory of Knowledge relies on one’s ability to separate statistical variation into common and special causes to learn about and improve a system. Each part of Profound Knowledge is interdependent and equal in importance. Nonetheless, in my study, if there is one of the four components that seems to flow through each of the others, it is Psychology. Psychology involves understanding the actions and reactions of people in everyday circumstances.
Read More