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Reading, writing and TQS. The phrase isn't catchy, but the Total Quality Schools approach of applying total quality management (TQM) principles to public schools is catching on in the St. Louis area as two more schools - Columbia Accelerated Community Education Center in the city and University City's Brittany Woods Middle School - join those already associated with the program.
Concepts such as customer focus, leadership and empowerment, continuous process improvement and effecting culture change - long applied at Motorola, Federal Express, Xerox and other corporations - are moving from the boardroom to classrooms in public schools. The vehicle is the Total Quality Schools course offered jointly by the John M. Olin School of Business and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work (GWB).
Through the course, senior undergraduate business students, graduate students in the master of business administration (MBA) degree program and students in the master of social work (MSW) degree program work as a team with teachers, students, administrators and parents at local schools to make improvements using TQM tools. The University students act as facilitators for partner-school teams, guiding them in using techniques such as data collection, process mapping, affinity diagrams and brainstorming.
"The issues the teams address can be as big as improving discipline and reducing absenteeism or as small as re-engineering the lunchroom line," explained Ashley George Gill, assistant dean and director of external relations at the business school and coordinator of the TQS program. "The overriding goal, however, is to improve the educational process."
Corporations and schools face similar organizational challenges: communication, buy-in and involvement of stakeholders. "It doesn't matter if you're selling computers or trying to teach fifth-grade math," said Gill. "The quality concepts are the same."
The consultant team and its partner-school team take extensive training in TQM, led by Dean Kropp, Ph.D., associate dean and the Dan Broida Professor of Operations and Manufacturing Management at the business school, and Deborah Paulsrud, lecturer at the social work school. The training includes a session on meeting facilitation led by staff from Ernst & Young LLP and donated by the Ernst & Young firm.
The idea is not so much to find and fix specific issues in schools as to learn a method or framework for continuous improvement. "TQS is not a project," said Paulsrud, who co-teaches the course with Kropp. "It's a way of thinking, believing and behaving."
Brainstorming to find solutions is part of the process, she added, "and students usually learn quickly that it's the people who are part of the system who come up with the best solutions. Student consultants are there to support and facilitate. They're not experts sent in to 'fix' problems."
This semester, there are 27 University students in the course - 12 from GWB and 15 from Olin - and each works in a team with one or two other students. The teams are partnered with one of 11 participating schools, representing six school districts. Their issues range from improving cafeteria menus and moving the lunchroom line more quickly to opening up communication between home and school and among teachers.
TQS began at the University in January 1996 with financial support from philanthropist E. Desmond Lee, the Webb Foundation, A.G. Edwards and Sons Inc. and the Procter & Gamble Foundation. Since then, all levels and sizes of schools, from elementary through high school and with populations of 120 to 1,200 students, have participated.
The results of incorporating TQM into these schools have been striking. One school experienced an 80 percent reduction in after-lunch tardiness, and TQM has been credited both with enhancing communication between staff and students and with improving classroom behavior.
Another school gained approval of an honors-level math program initiated by its students and showed a significant rise in student scores on statewide tests.
One satisfied TQS customer is Rita Gram, principal of Flynn Park Elementary School in the University City School District. "TQS has lived up to my expectations and more," she said. "It's given us a framework for improvement, and it helps me remember to gather the data before I rush in to fix a 'problem.'"
It also has empowered parents who are encouraged that the time they volunteer to help the school is now used more effectively, Gram said. For example, a parent-initiated computer committee has succeeded in getting IBMs into every classroom and enough computers in labs to ensure simultaneous access to all students in a class. Parents also are helping write a school curriculum for computer study and a grant proposal to Microsoft. Having the student consultants' perspective is very helpful, Gram said.
And what do student consultants learn in the process? "Students are learning the organizational complexities of a public school system," said Paulsrud, "and that there are no easy answers. They're seeing that 'work' is a big part of 'teamwork.' Also, because social work and business students work together as teammates, they learn from each other."
Kevin O'Connell, MBA '98, whose team is partnered with Venice (Ill.) High School, said, "I've learned a lot from the social work students. They can really look at the people factor of a problem very quickly, whereas I sometimes only look at a problem from a process standpoint." O'Connell, who is concentrating in finance and has a job with Koch Industries Inc. in Wichita, Kan., after graduation, said he was inspired to take TQS because he thoroughly enjoyed Kropp's Total Quality Management course. "I also wanted to do some nontraditional consulting," he added.
Social work students said they learn from the business students, too. "I didn't know anyone in the business school before this," said Suzanne Ross, MSW '99, whose team is partnered with St. Louis Career Academy. "Business students bring different skills to the table."
Ross added that seeing how a real school works is different from reading a textbook case. "You're right there on the front lines," she said, "and just setting foot in the door, the challenges are obvious. I think it's going to be a great learning experience."
This experiential learning combined with a commitment to community service is exactly the kind of learning Stuart I. Greenbaum, Ph.D., dean of the business school, endorses. He and his wife, Elaine Greenbaum, Ph.D., who volunteers as a member of the TQS planning team, helped create the TQS program at Northwestern University with Chicago public schools before coming to Washington University in 1995 and inspiring the St. Louis version.
"The program is a win-win situation," he said. "It trains public school leaders in ways to utilize quality management techniques to identify and to address issues within the school environment, and it offers Washington University students a practical consulting experience through which they can enhance their leadership, communication and presentation skills."
Shanti Khinduka, Ph.D., dean of the social work school, said that all involved with TQS will benefit from its interdisciplinary approach to problem solving. "The increasingly complex challenges associated with education," he observed, "require the active involvement of professionals with varied backgrounds and expertise."
Schools participating in TQS this year are Venice High School, Illinois District #3; Washington School, Normandy School District; St. Louis Career Academy; Columbia Accelerated Community Education Center and Williams Middle Community Education Center, St. Louis Public Schools; Brittany Woods Middle School, Flynn Park Elementary School, Jackson Park School, Ronald E. McNair Sixth Grade Center and University City High School, University City School District; and Curtis Bishop Middle School, Wellston School District.
- Nancy Belt
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