Whether viewed through Deming's 14 points, Juran's Trilogy, or Kaoru Ishikawa's Thought Revolution, Total Quality Management embodies 4 fundamental tenets: primary focus on customers and suppliers, universal commitment to continuous improvement, a systems approach, and top management responsibility. Educational organizations are recreating their…

Alfie Kohn seems ill-informed about Total Quality Management's educational benefits. Students have always been workers; what is changing is the nature of that work. In schools of quality, teachers and students learn together as they create collaborative, trusting environments where failure is but a temporary step on the road to continuous…

Deming's quality-focused principles contradict Taylor's top-down, authoritarian industrial model. Deming advises educators to fix the system instead of blaming individual teachers for student apathy and low achievement. In the new paradigm, education will be a process that encourages continual progress through improving one's abilities, expanding…