Few K-12 school districts have integrated the Baldrige model as completely as Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), the 16^th largest school system in the country with 200 schools and 22,000 employees serving 142,000 students. Montgomery County, Maryland, is located in the northern suburbs of Washington D.C.

MCPS began its Baldrige journey in 2000 when it received grant funding to implement the Baldrige Education Criteria for Performance Excellence. It conducted its first Baldrige self-assessment that year, the results of which were presented to its Board of Education in January, 2001. Many of the recommendations in that report have been implemented and other opportunities for improvement continue to be addressed today.

MCPS established a Baldrige Leadership Team in 2002 to guide the implementation of the Baldrige Criteria. The team meets monthly to review and improve deployment.

MCPS applied for the Baldrige Award in 2004. In 2005, it received Maryland’s Baldrige-based quality award, the U.S. Senate Productivity Award. It continues to integrate the Baldrige model, including training all schools on using Baldrige as the framework for school improvement planning and developing a guide for classroom teachers on how to help students become co-producers of their learning.

In my experience, few organizations of any type have integrated the Baldrige model as thoroughly as MCPS, as evidenced by its Baldrige-guided Classroom Learning System. Teachers and students use processes and systems to guide class and individual student learning. As its Web site notes, “Students at any age can manage their learning and chart their progress whether it be in Kindergarten or in a trigonometry class. When things don’t go right, they learn to plan for a rapid change.”

MCPS Baldrige classrooms feature classroom data centers, individual data notebooks or folders, and widespread use of quality tools and the PDSA cycle. Students and teachers integrate processes and systems defined by the Baldrige Categories into their classrooms:

MCPS offers a wealth of information about the Baldrige integration process on its Web site. You can check it out here.

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