z45\doc\web\2000\09\bald2.txt On October 17 and 18, NASA Ames (Mountain View, CA) is hosting a conference on achieving excellence in education through the Baldridge principles and process, What can be the results of incorporating a high performance education model using the Baldrige process and criteria?? From what I remember, this baldridge stuff is based on the Total Quality Management fad, which is a sort of bastardization of the theories of W. Edwards Deming (TQM practitioners, for example, I think tend to support pay for performance, which Deming thought was useless). Here is a link to a message I posted previously with some links: http://lists.cua.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0005&L=arn-l&P=8136 You can also surf for stuff under "deming" and "quality" or TQM and so on. Have fun. -----Original Message----- From: e-morton@WORLDNET.ATT.NET [SMTP:e-morton@WORLDNET.ATT.NET] Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2000 4:38 PM To: ARN-L@listsrva.cua.edu Subject: quality forum, Mountain View CA On October 17 and 18, NASA Ames (Mountain View, CA) is hosting a conference on achieving excellence in education through the Baldridge principles and process, about which I know far less than I should. Since I live five minutes from NASA, I intend to go to at least part of it, to hear and understand what is being said (and what is being touted). But it's easier to deal with a single- point-of-view conference if I have heard some other points of view first. References to reading material (web or paper) would be helpful, too. Is there a discussion of it somewhere in the huge morass of ARN e-mail? The conference is described at http://qualityforum.arc.nasa.gov/ The document I've copied below contains some of the reasons why they think everyone should come to the conference. It is backed up by a link to the TAAS results of Brazosport ISD, which of course look suitably impressive (or, rather, suitably unbelievable). I've picked up a bit about TAAS from ARN and other sources, but what can you tell me about Brazosport? Is all of this simply "how I achieved success through bubble tests"? Is there more (or less) to it than that? Is the conference likely to be informative, or is it likely to be a revival meeting? Thanks for any help or guidance you can offer, on- or off-list. --Erwin Morton emorton@bigfoot.com --- The following document (which doesn't seem quite finished) is available, in pdf format, through the "Education" button on the NASA web page mentioned above: Excellence in Education Excellence in Education through the Baldrige National Quality Award criteria and process is a focus of the "Quality Forum 2000" conference on October 17-18, 2000. The conference is sponsored by NASA, CalQED, Solectron, Chevron, the ASQ and the IECC. It will be held at the NASA Ames Research Center facility between San Francisco and San Jose, California. Mark your calendar, and register. Keynote speakers Monica Lozano, President of the California State Board of Education and Tom Houlihan, Superintendent of the Year in North Carolina will kick off the education agenda with a description of Excellence in Education from coast to coast. You will learn the Baldrige principles and process. You will learn the high performance education models through the Baldrige process used elsewhere in the country. What can be the results of incorporating a high performance education model using the Baldrige process and criteria?? Check out the results obtained by Brazosport ISD, go to, http://www.brazosport.isd.tenet.edu/awards/TAASpg.html If you want to obtain these results, learn how to do it by attending the "Quality Forum 2000". If Brazosport ISD can do it, you can too. You will learn how to build a Baldrige business/education partnership. You will learn how tocreate an employer partnership to recognize accomplishments of setting goals. You will learn how to teach goal setting and measuring accomplishment to students in the classroom. Build enthusiasm for measurable results in school staff, parents, students and teachers You will learn about Baldrige in California standards and assessments. You will learn how to meet the California State standards and assessment criteria using the Baldrige process You will see a "virtual classroom" in which a real teacher and her students learn goal setting and accomplishment through the Baldrige process. You will spend a morning creating your own Baldrige "Excellence in Education" implementation program with the help of a trained facilitator. You will learn how to utilize the resources available to you for success . . . But, you will learn all this only if you register and attend Quality Forum 2000! Register Today -------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the ARN-L list, send command SIGNOFF ARN-L to LISTSERV@LISTS.CUA.EDU. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the ARN-L list, send command SIGNOFF ARN-L to LISTSERV@LISTS.CUA.EDU. From: Assessment Reform Network Mailing List [mailto:ARN-L@listsrva.CUA.EDU]On Behalf Of Irv Besecker Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2000 2:54 AM To: ARN-L@listsrva.CUA.EDU Subject: Re: quality forum, Mountain View CA Erwin, The Baldridge Assessment Criteria can be used to evaluate any organization, including schools. Allen is part right when he says that they represent a bastardization of Deming's philosophy, which is true of most efforts to promote Total Quality Education (TQE) in Deming's name. However, Baldridge (named after the Secretary of Commerce under Reagan) does not promote pay for performance unless it is part of a team. For example, one of the things that is done right in NC (based on TQE) is that the bonuses paid for ABC test score results (the part of this that is wrong) are paid to every teacher and administrator in a school that is declared exemplary, regardless of whether or not they teach a tested class. Deming was opposed to merit pay, grades, or any other kind of ranking or sorting. In business, he spent the last 30 years of his career in opposition to MBO (management by objective) or any attempt to pit employee against employee, or department against department. In states like ours, where Deming has been hijacked by misguided corporations who influence education policy, TQE has been reduced to the one part of Deming's philosophy that he considered the least important--performance results. Deming believed that humane policies and processes, implemented in an atmosphere low in fear, would allow the results to take care of themselves. TQE advocates have taken performance results--test scores--and elevated them to the highest priority, thus the bastardization that Allen referred to. I believe that the Baldridge Education Assessment Criteria--Leadership, Information and Analsis, Strategic and Operational Planning, Human Resource Development, Education Process Management, School Performance Results, Student Focus and Satisfaction-- could be a useful model for evaluating schools if you made a few changes, such as: 1) change the business-oriented language to school and student-friendly language, 2) define performance results without relying solely on test scores, 3) reduce the emphasis on quality tools, 4) define data as information collected by students and teachers, not a bunch of test scores and numbers produced by a computer, 5) retain the focus on the real Deming philosophy. The Baldridge process is similar to an accreditation process with a little more substance, and at least it is done by human evaluators in collaboration with the educators on site. If you want to understand the Deming philosophy, read Deming. Don't read anything labeled TQM or TQE. There is a world of differrence. There is a similarity here with Dewey, whose message(s) has often been distorted or misinterpreted by others. Irv