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¶ … except those beginning a sentence, should be typed as digits rather than words. To count the number of words in this paragraph, select the paragraph, and on the Tools menu click Word Count. Total Quality Management is a popular topic in education today. Japanese firms introduced total Quality Management (TQM) in 1951 (Hess & Gift, 2008). As Hess and Gift put it in the American School Board Journal, "TQM emphasizes carrying out all jobs and practices correctly the first time" (2008).

However, this assumes that the jobs and practices were good to begin with. Today's No Child Left Behind approach aims to fundamentally transform schools, not just perfect current practices (No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, 2002). Technically, the International Standards Organization (ISO) defines it as "a management approach, centred [sic] on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-run success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organisation[sic] and society" (ISO in Weinstein, 2009).

In theory, this sounds like a win-win situation for all concerned. Unfortunately, it's not exactly student centered, because students become products to meet society's expectations, say Obermiller, Fleener, and Raven (as cited in Weinstein, 2009). Congress established the influential Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award in Education in 1987 to raise awareness of quality management (Baldridge Performance Excellence Program, 2011).

Interesting enough, it does not even mention students' needs until it reaches criteria 2: Strategic Planning, and then moves to students as customers in Criteria 3: Customer Focus, where it talks about acquiring them (Baldridge Performance Excellence Program, 2011). Nonetheless, it insists that it has a focus on students (Baldridge Performance Excellence Program, 2011). Body of Paper: Experimental Evidence: Type 1 -- in education: The experimental evidence for TQM is mixed, at best.

According to Diane Ravitch's book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, where she dissects many of the so-called triumphs of these new management methods and points out their faulty data and methods (2010). For example, she devotes an entire chapter about District 2 of New York City, and describes how "corporate reformers…became convinced that District 2 was the model for success & #8230; and that other districts would experience similar improvement if every teacher were compelled to adopt District 2's methods unquestioningly" (Ravitch, 2010).

She pointed out that two-thirds of the district's principals, nearly half of the teachers, and almost all classroom aides were either dismissed or replaced, but new staff developers held jobs in their hands as they reported on teachers' adherence to the constructivist instructional mandates (Ravitch, 2010). Finally, she shows how the gains in test scores can be attributed entirely to "demographic and economic transformation" instead of teaching methods (Ravitch, 2010). Type 2 -- in business Even businesses recognize that TQM is stifling.

In fact, in 2007, BusinessWeek magazine's cover story focused on the loss of creativity at 3M from the implementation of TQM techniques (Hindo, 2007). Hindo describes how a TQM disciple named McNerney first laid off 11% of the workforce, made the rest of the workers more vulnerable to being laid off, and shrank the budget -- and then implented 6 Sigma, a TQM technique.

But, the current CEO points out "You can't put a Six Sigma process into that area and say, well, I'm getting behind on invention, so I'm going to schedule myself for three good ideas on Wednesday and two on Friday. That's not how creativity works." (Hindo, 2007) Since 3M is founded on making money from inventions, that's a problem. As Charles O'Reilly, a Stanford Graduate School of Business management professor points out: "If you take over a company that's been living on innovation, clearly you can squeeze costs out.

The question is, what's the long-term damage to the company?" This question is answered by the fact that over the last three years, 3M slid from number 1 to number 7 on the BusinessWeek / Boston Consulting Group's list of Most Innovative Companies (Hindo, 2007). Results Shaping: On the other hand, there are cases where uniformity is good, like equitable educational outcomes, as opposed to student body diversity.

An article on the Equity Scorecard Project describes it as based on "organizational double looped learning," which is different from "single loop learning" because it requires consideration of changes, as opposed to just questioning authority (Kezar, Glenn, Lester, & Nakamoto, 2008). They differ it from TQM because they say that TQM is based on learning (Kezar, Glenn, Lester, & Nakamoto, 2008), so the difference is merely semantic.

The authors pride themselves on avoiding a "cookie cutter" approach to "identify important context features that enable implementation [of greater racial equity] and can help [institutional] leaders have greater success in the future" -- nothing to do with equitable educational outcomes for students. Clearly, TQM doesn't help aim educational reforms. Controversies: Don Houston of Massey University in New Zealand, TQM is changed when applied to higher education, instead of used as is -- or higher education is changed to fit TQM (Houston, 2007).

He points out that TQM emerged from the manufacturing industry, where it began as a method to reduce "economic loss from inappropriate, if well-intentioned, improvement actions based on misinterpretations of patterns of variation" (Houston, 2007). He summarizes Harvey as saying that TQM is used to justify organization and funding changes, concentrate on cost-benefit calculations, weak the independence of schools, and question their success (Houston, 2007).

Furthermore, it is a slippery slope from businesses as customer for the product of students, to students as workers and professors as managers, to students as customers and professor as service provider, to students as customers and professors as entertainmers and government as manager (Houston, 2007). People forget that TQM started as a way to manage widget production, but students are each unique, without unvarying performance specifications -- universities produce diversity, instead of stifling it (Houston, 2007). Creativity is a negative in TQM.

Conclusion: Several resources were examined to learn about TQM in education, both at the public school and higher educational level. Diana Ravitch's book is especially significant because she was Secretary of Education under the Bush administration, who pushed for the NCLB law. She is an influential academic who worked politically to pass laws based on educational research, and devotes an entire book to repudiating her earlier stance, examining the data underlying her earlier assumptions regarding TQM point by point.

Don Houston's article reviewing the history and applicability of TQM aptly summarizes the schizophrenic slippery slope from students as unique individuals.