All Posts Tagged With: "quality tools"
Integrating Baldrige Big Time
Few K-12 school districts have integrated the Baldrige model as completely as Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), the 16th 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…
3Nov2009 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedEducation: PDSA + Quality Tools = AYP
In the spring of 2008, Community Consolidated District15 learned that eight of its schools had failed to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) for reading. This is a common issue for school districts across the country that is often the result of student subgroups failing to meet the AYP standard.
District 15 serves 12,000 students in northwestern Chicago at 15 elementary schools, four junior high schools, a preschool early childhood center, and an alternative public day school. It received the Baldrige Award in 2003.
A lot has changed since then. Several key leaders retired. A referendum failed and $25 million had to be cut from the budget, which led to hiring several first-time teachers. Key positions that supported the Baldrige initiative were eliminated. New board members were elected. A new superintendent started in June 2008.
Under such conditions, a Baldrige mindset can easily disintegrate. The opposite happened at District 15. The PDSA cycle (plan-do-study-act) had become part of the district’s culture, as had the use of quality tools. In the summer of 2008, a team of principals and other district leaders was formed to tackle the AYP problem. The team analyzed test scores and discovered that the district’s intervention programs weren’t working. It developed…
2Oct2009 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued
