Business-like accountability in education: Commentary on Morrill to Baldrige

Arif, Mohammed

This article traces the history of the Malcolm Baldrige Awards as a force in twenty-first century U.S. schools. History of this Total Quality Management (TQM)-like program begins with a retrospect of American public school curricula. Beginning with the formation of early colonial Dame Schools, this article continues with the formation of colleges and universities, and adds contextual and progressive eras emphasizing religion, politics and business orientations. The post-1776 U.S. federal government made public education a states' right question; however the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1892 added accountability to the curriculum, as did unparalleled school growth, and curriculum wars debating schools as places of business or knowledge. The history section concludes with this century's- Malcolm Baldrige Awards potential impact on U.S. education. That history includes issues of vocational education, New Deal Acts, World War I and II legislation, National Defense Acts, Elementary and Secondary Education acts, and a series of eight 1980s commissions and reports criticizing U.S. schools and suggesting more achievement-oriented curricula.

This article emphasizes the effect the Malcolm Baldrige Awards could have on education. Though this efficiency model has been created for business purposes, it is now offered to various school sites in order to apply more quality to U.S. education. The authors demonstrate the usefulness of such governmental directives to industry; however, they dispute how schools, who rely on teachers to make immediate judgments regarding curricular exchanges with their students, can implement such programs effectively.

Introduction and Preface to the Malcolm Baldrige Awards

This article functions in three separate yet interconnected ways. To begin, the Malcolm Baldrige Awards are defined as an effort towards inculcating "accountability" in education. These awards use industrial successes as benchmarks to incorporate more business-styled efficiency at public and higher education sites. Second, the article traces the history of U.S. public school curricula, with special notations to precursor business interests and governmental interpurposes beginning with the Morrill Acts and leading to the Baldrige Awards. Third, the article suggests how the Baldrige Awards apply the concept of quality to education, utilizes government directives, and then examines the practical and utilitarian applications these awards imply.

The Malcolm Baldrige Awards, named after the former Secretary of Commerce and initiated by Congress in 1987, was created to promote quality awareness, recognize quality achievements of U.S. business organizations, and provide vehicles for sharing successful strategies (Acaro, 1995, p. 1). The award criteria have been built upon business values of customer-driven quality, leadership, continuous improvement, employee participation and development, and fast response (www.quality.nist.gov). Historically, these five qualities have roots in and are complementary to Edward Deming's, Total Quality Management system. That economist's World War II, Marshall Plan reconstruction for Japan had fourteen points of interest: 1] Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service; 2] Adopt a new philosophy of productivity; 3] Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality; 4] End the practice of awarding business via price tag; 5] Improve production and service; 6] Begin on-the-job-training; 7] Institute leadership; 8] Drive out fear; 9] Break down barriers between departments; 10] Eliminate zero-defects and more productivity slogans and exhortations; 11] Eliminate quotas and management by objective; 12] Build pride of workmanship for all workers; 13] Begin programs of education and self-improvement; and, 14] Transformation is everyone's job (www.quality.nist.gov).

The Baldrige Awards criteria provide a framework for designing, implementing, and assessing seven business-oriented criteria: 1] Customer-driven quality; 2] Leadership; 3] Continuous improvement; 4] Employee participation and development; 5] Fast response; 6] Design quality and prevention; 7] Long-range outlook; 8] Management by fact; 9] Partnership development; and, 10] Corporate responsibility and citizenship (Acaro, 1995, p. 2).

Since 1999, however, the Baldrige Awards have been extended to public and private schools, including elementary, secondary, junior colleges and colleges/universities. Applicants must plan and show detailed, recorded improvements in leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management, and business results, (www.quality.nist.gov). Those results are coterminous to five pillars of "Total Quality Schools" the Baldrige Awards champion: 1] Customer Focus and Satisfaction; 2] Total Involvement and Staff Development; 3] Quality in Operational Results; 4] Problem Prevention and Resolution; and, 5] Continuous Improvement (Arcaro, 1995, p. 94).

U.S. Public School History and Governmental Interventions

The Malcolm Baldrige Awards are not the first federal interventions U.S. public schools have experienced. Following is a selected, mini-history of U.S. public schools, and it examines their growth through eras exemplified by emphasis on religion, politics, and business/industry. As the public school movement proliferated in the U.S., the federal government has taken more interest and provided more curricular guidelines and programs. Until the 19th century, U.S. public school curricular history focused primarily on the New England region, for the middle colonies utilized parochial schools as their central focus, while the southern colonies concentrated on tutoring and small group instruction for the plantation owners' children (Button and Provenzo, 1989, pp. 34-44). The eras in which this paper will concentrate fall into four distinct eras: "The Puritan Platform," (1620-1749); "The Reluctant Rebellion" (1750-1859); "The Lever Age" (1860-1916); and, "The Efficiency Evolution" (1917-1983) (Smiley, 1992, pp. 12-16).

"The Puritan Platform" (1620-1749)

"The Puritan Platform" (1620-1749) began even before the first Western European immigrants arrived in Native America. Through their religious study and training, the Mayflower Puritans believed they were a chosen people, partly because their religion spoke of the "Doctrine of the Elect," whether or not they were in England or the new world. As they settled into the northeastern area, found there was help from Native Americans, and discerned how rich their claimed lands were, they made an important discovery. It became clear their religious fervor, honesty, frugality, thrift, and accountability to a higher power gave the colonists sustenance AND then profits-the forerunners of more streamlined and bigger business ventures (Button and Provenzo, 1989, pp. 35-41). During this first era, the Bible and the New England Primer were the basic literacy texts of the basic Dame Schools (1620), named for the women who served as their teachers of Bible readings and basic literacy. (Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, p. 80) Latin Grammar Schools (LGS), (1635) the first secondary sites, added complementary basic "3-R" instruction to the Dame School (Bible) literacy emphasis. Harvard (1636) utilized the Dame and LGS graduates by concentrating liberal arts to prepare doctors, lawyers, and ministers for colonial leadership positions. Only Benjamin Franklin's "Academy" (1849) the first colonial trade school, deviated from the basic liberal arts orientation of the other sites (Thompson, 1951, p. 89). Lacking any centralized government, Massachusetts Colony passed their Laws of 1642 and 1647, which first urged and then commanded cities of 100 families or more to provide elementary public instruction to their youth.

"The Reluctant Rebellion" (1750-1859)

If religion instruction dominated the first era, a growing political acumen became the focus of "The Reluctant Rebellion" (1750-1859). During the course of the second era, the concept of public school rapidly escalated. From 1805 to 1839, several important curricular concepts appeared, augments to the 1776 Revolution, and which eventually aided the growth of U.S. business and industry. In 1805, New York instituted Monitorial Schools, in which older students helped and tutored younger ones, the first examples of cooperative learning, and instrumental in teaching the colonists to interact and build community spirit-an early Edward Deming into Malcolm Baldrige model (Tanner and Tanner, 1990, pp. 44-45). Because the numbers of young people in the colonies warranted their creation, the first colonial high school was established in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1821. Teachers were needed to instruct the increased student bodies, and the creation of teacher preparatory institutions was inevitable-Boston, Massachusetts, formed the first normal school (1823) and the first public normal school (1839). Their curricula, still very Liberal Arts in orientation, were important to the growing and potential work force matriculating through the growing nation's high schools (Spring, 1994, pp. 213-214).

According to the newly-written U.S. Constitution, public schooling was an important part of the emerging country's growth, but the writers of that document believed the responsibility was a states-rights issue, and the 10th Amendment was created. Moved by the need of low-income people who could not afford the price of private school tuition, Henry Barnard and Horace Mann established the concept of the Common School, a term denoting elementary schooling was a right for all people (Willis et. al, 1994, pp. 39-40). Their concept reflected Thomas Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," which showed how proposed democracies or republics had to insure the literacy and education of its citizens if that country was to grow and prosper (Hirsch, 1996, pp. 17-18).

As the American Revolution of 1776 became an important fact of life for all Americans, the federal government began its first serious interventions to aid and assist public education-in two distinct venues. The first came in the form of specific grants given to select organizations, schools, and institutions. From 1802 until 1895 there were five such grants (Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, pp. 204-205). In 1819 the Connecticut Asylum for Teaching Deaf and Dumb was founded and received a land grant for that operation. Complementary to that New England grant, in 1857 the Columbia Institute for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., was founded. After much post Civil War negotiations, Howard University was given a grant for African American education (1879). To include not only the deaf and negro educational means, the U.S. Government awarded its first grant to the American Printing House for the Blind in 1879. To aid women's education, the Institute and College for Girls received federal grant aid (1895) (Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, pp. 204-205).

Though these interventions were important, the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1892 were the first ones to have nationwide significance. Named for the Vermont congressman who proposed same, and built on the Northwest Ordinance of 1785-1787's land granting act, the Morrill Acts gave 30,000 acres of public land for each senator and representative it had in Congress (Tanner and Tanner, 1990, pp. 73-79). The 69 land-grant colleges were required to teach agriculture, mechanical arts, and military science programs. The states were also asked to provide more business and industry-oriented instruction to their students; however, the individual states held control of all other coursework. A & M universities, said the federal government, were a priority so people of moderate or poor income could send their children to public-supported colleges and universities.

Fueled by the fire generated by colonial dissidents wanting independence from Britain, and the growing spirit of entrepreneurship that needed manpower to build the economy, the U.S. advertised for and got an influx of immigrants to feed its needs (Spring, 1994, pp. 268-270). The secular version of the Doctrine of the Elect continued to flourish, and it did so on two separate hierarchies. Business and political leaders envisioned a country free of any overt and domineering forces that Britain represented, and they themselves believed in this elitism. As well, they convinced and used the various immigrants to feed the enveloping business-directed economy. However, as they began to understand their own status as captains of industry and leaders of their country, they had catapulted themselves into elite leaders of the elect. The religious dictates of the "Puritan Platform," unwittingly, became the reason for the dominant political and growing business sense blanketing this manifestly-drawn colonial second era.

This "Reluctant Rebellion" peaked with the combined political and business struggles, conflicts, and ascendancy, and is treated in several important texts. (Cf. Button and Provenzo, Cremin, for a fuller treatment). However, it is the publication of two texts, significantly aligned, that punctuated the rebellions just described, and both preview the more scientific approach the colonies were developing-the key word and emphasis becoming "efficiency," a word that will resound again and again in the "The Lever Age," the last of the curricular eras discussed here. Mirroring Spenserian dogma of what knowledge is of most work, Charles Darwin, after much research and soul searching, published Origin of Species (1859) (Gutek, 1988, p. 84). Darwin's research treated survival of the fittest-on any level, and colonial America was mirroring the growing political, social, and business notion that those who are most able to able are those who survive. Survival and application of the pragmatic ethic became the philosophic tenets of the "Lever Age."

"The Lever Age" (1860-1916)

"The Lever Age" (1860-1916) added fuel to the coming Industrial Revolution. For teachers of U.S. colonial students up to the Industrial Revolution, teaching encompassed instructing basic citizenship/literacy enhancement to their students, who already spoke English. Since farming and small businesses did not require very many prerequisites, and bartering had been the focal point of many if not most transactions, schools could operate as the "little red school houses" they literally and figuratively were. Not only were the institutions labeled as work-related, their curricular mission statements often reflected the ability to train workers to become more refined "production" people so that they could contribute to the growing economy (Button and Provenzo, 1989, p. 151).

Inventions during the Industrial Revolution changed the scope of the U.S. economy from one emphasizing individual bartering to one that emphasized more systematized, organized, and manufactory products. However, the curriculum of the colonial schools during this industrially-growing era also changed in several important ways also. The textbook that became most dominant one in the "Lever Age" was McGuffey's Reader (Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, p. 147). Written in a much more precise, sequenced, and orderly fashion from its "Reluctant Rebellion" predecessor, The Blue-Backed Speller." this book was a mirror for the growing accountability in public education. More than any other text that had been penned and used in the colonies, McGuffey's Reader can be considered the first "basal reader." To students who utilized English as their native tongue, this text might not have had the impact it did; however, such was not the case. Because many of the new citizens could not speak their new language, English, the instructors, who were not ready for English-as-a-second-language charges, often did not know how to teach these students. Corporal punishment became an all-too-common occurrence in schooling during that era, and there are vast newspaper accounts of the new "drop-outs" becoming associated with gang activities, drug abuse, and increased crime rates-21st century headlines all. The business of America was being served with workers' capital, while the education of America was in flux.

However, just as important as was the growth in the textbooks and curricula for public schools, the federal interventions proved to be a huge advantage for business and industry-the first a court ruling. Though there were many precedents for funding elementary schools in America, there had been none for secondary schools. The Supreme Court (1872) ruled the town of Kalamazoo, Michigan, which had balked at paying for post-elementary education, must make tax money available their secondary school sites (Thompson, 1951, p. 152).

Into the fray of overcrowded schools and confusion of what all education should be for the growing country entered Dr. Charles Eliot, the President of Harvard, and an important curricular leader for decades in public schools. He chaired the famous Committee of 10, which set up a model one-track course of study for all students, and he connected all high school studies were preparation for entry into colleges and universities (Kliebard, 1986, pp. 10-15). What happened as Eliot's doctrine spread from its Harvard base to the curricular scope and sequence charts of many major high school districts was predictable. Most of the second half of the 19th century was dominated by Republican presidents and legislatures, and individual choice was an important consideration in all of society. President Eliot, a prominent National Education Association person, left the curriculum to the behest of students and faculty. Students whose parents wanted, wished, and promoted a college education, took the lead in the curriculum model based on the liberal arts Trivium and Quadrivium (Latin, Greek, English, the modern languages, mathematics, the physical sciences, the biological sciences, history, and geography). Students whose parents did not understand or promote higher education, were left with a curriculum that encouraged them to drop out as quickly as possible. Those drop outs could seek factory employment in entry-level positions but little else. What Dr. Eliot did for secondary schools was complemented by a second report for elementary schools (Willis, et. al, 1994, pp. 85-95).

Dr. William T. Harris, a colleague of Eliot's, and whose reputation was widely known as a Herbartian idealist, chaired the Committee of 15 (1895). Harris's scholars studied the curriculum public elementary school students should take and receive, and formulated and issued one that supported in all respects what the Committee of 10 had effaced (Willis, et. al, 1994, pp. 95-100). That is to say, the western-European derived Liberal Arts classical education became the focal point of elementary education. If the students could get early training in the Liberal Arts, they could ascend to high school studies, reasoned the Committee of 15. Once those students could compete for a similar high school education, they could then they could prepare for their higher education futures.

Because of the clout Drs. Eliot and Harris had, K-12 college-oriented curriculum became the pervasive curriculum literally in every major U.S. industrial city in the U.S. Until the time of their work, it is difficult to find any reference to the study of curriculum per se, because local-district schools in the colonies related to local curricular issues, and consequently there had been no national focus on this subject. Elite students who followed the Liberal Arts curriculum of elementary and high schools could and did enter similar institutions of higher learning that subscribed to this classically-based course of studies. This college-only scope and sequence course(s) of study had an immediate impact on virtually all public schools to date (Cremin, 1988, pp. 384-387).

If the Committees of 10 and 15 acted as a preliminary climax to the drama of curricular efforts in the colonies, then there is also a denouement relating to the first professor of curriculum, and, as well, three significant dates that person built upon the work(s) of Eliot and Harris. Dr. John Franklin Bobbitt was the first professor of curriculum, and he took his position at the University of Chicago under the direction of Dr. Harold Rugg, who had a keen interest in the scientific study of education, though not necessarily the specific intent of Spencer's or Darwin's scholarship (Kliebard, 1986, pp. 181-182). Bobbitthad written criticism of Eliot's and Harris's works, suggesting that the "one size fits all (students)" Liberal Arts-oriented curriculum did not make allowances for everyone. However, the body of his own work became a parallel to the very criticism he leveled against the two committees' philosophy. To begin, Bobbin solidified his thoughts in the when he published The Curriculum (1918). Because he believed in quantification of education generally, and scientific curriculum particularly, Bobbitt's curriculum theory revolved around the concepts of "activities," "science," and "efficiency." One of his important resource models was the business efficiency expert, Frederick Taylor, who had coined "efficiency" in Principles of Scientific Management (1911) (Kliebard, 1986, pp. 175-176). BothBobbitt and Taylor proposed all business ventures could be accomplished by finding out which tasks had to be accomplished, then hypothesizing ways to complete them in the most scientific and cost-effective manner possible. The journal articles Bobbitt had authored before his first text made it clear he felt that "directed" (school) and "undirected" (student) curriculum was made up of a series of activities. The activities were the curriculum, said the author, and if the students don't achieve them, it is their "shortcoming" (Bobbitt, 1918, pp. 28-32). Perhaps the most important facet of Bobbitt's work was his actual travel to selected high schools in many major U.S. metropolitan cities. He visited Dallas, TX, Cleveland, OH, Denver, CO, New York, NY, and Chicago, IL, among others, to find out how to help make the curricula in those locations more efficacious. The only problern with his fact-finding tour was that he visited local industries to find out what they wanted placed into their local schools (Smiley, 1992, pp. 241-244). Therefore, with every study he undertook, he found the same results-business leaders wanted students to be able to function well in small business and factory job slots. The studies came back with similar results time after time; however, no teachers, parents, or students were consulted. Bobbitt continued to write many articles and two other books, and he solidly maintained his research had validity and reliability.

While Bobbitt continued his "efficiency" curriculum, he encountered a colleague who had founded the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago-Dr. John Dewey. Dewey's Moral Principles in Education (1909) and Democracy in Education (1916) advocated two precepts, the first of which was listening to students needs before setting up any curriculum ventures (Kliebard, 1986, pp. 51-54 and 177-179). The second Dewey scholarship position lay in helping students locate and utilize the different types of experiences needed to function in their world- constructivism. Because there had been discussions, arguments, and conferences dramatizing the differences between Bobbitt and Dewey's curricular positions and philosophies, Dr. Harold Rugg convened the historic National Society for the Study of Education's (NSSE) Twenty-Sixth Yearbook. On one side stood Dewey, William Kirkpatrick, and G. Stanley Hall, all proponents of child-centered curriculum. On the other side of the curriculum aisle with Bobbitt were David Snedden, and W.W. Charters, both of whom had written and published extensively in scientific curricular matters and subjects (Kliebard, 1986, pp. 110-120). The conclusion of the 26th N.S.S.E. Conference was a two-text proceedings. The first volume, gave recognition to all the curriculum voices present at the conference, while the second was an agreement to work for the best interest of U.S. public school children. Everyone signed the second document; however, all the principal parties, including Bobbitt and Dewey, the principal protagonists, simply went back to their respective scholarship and continued with their work (Smiley, 1992, p. 456).

"The Efficiency Evolution 1917-1983"

While the battle for the scientific and efficiency raged, and still sets the curricular leader ship tone for today's public schools, the U.S. Federal Government continued with interventions that complemented these battles from 1917 to the present day. The types of intercessions include six specific areas: 1] Industrial and Vocational Education; 2] New Deal Acts; 3] World War Maneuvers; 4] National Defense Acts; 5] Elementary and Secondary Education Acts; and 6] Post 1980's reform proposals (Cf. Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, pp. 204-210 for a full treatment).

The Smith-Hughes Act (1917), founded by a 1914 Commission, was the first (U.S.) Congressional attempts since the Morrill Acts to provide American workers with more effective and efficient vocational education (Spring, 1994, p. 228). The premise of this landmark act included the constant use of the word "waste" in terms of the curriculum the legislators promoted, a term Taylor-like scientific curricular people promoted. Second, the Common School Movement had its premise in all children being able to get a free and equal education. However, the Smith-Hughes made it clear the equality of opportunity for particular jobs; hence, working class people would have a proclivity to continue with blue-collar jobs, and upper class and/or white-collar students would continue in their parent's occupations. By funding a dual-curricula in U.S. public schools, the Charles Eliot and Franklin Bobbitt "efficiency team" had found federal allies. Public school personnel funded by Smith-Hughes included trained counselors, who helped students choose working-class jobs. As well, vocationally-oriented diagnostic examinations, like the Munsterberg Tests, and others like them, rewarded students who could memorize various facts for factory-like jobs (Thompson, 1951, p. 123).

However, the biggest event associated with the Smith-Hughes legislation was the creation of junior high schools- their curriculum was the ideal place to meld both social skills and academic subjects for inclusion into the corporate world (Spring, 1994, p. 234). Added to the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act was later legislation, including the George-Reed Act (1929) and the George-Dean Act (1937), the intent of all three being the class division of students to fit various business molds (Spring, 1994, p. 236). In 1927 the Capper-Ketcham Act extended the Smith-Hughes Act to incorporate home economics and agriculture, and between World War I and II several federal programs were created to help young people become competent factory workers to support those two conflagrations (Thompson, 1951, p. 124).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1940's administrations applied governmental aid in a new direction for U.S. public school people. Instead of fueling businesses per se, this President and the various congresses developed the Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Post Depression American needed fiscal stimuli, and President Roosevelt and Congress loaned PWA money to build schools, hospitals, and libraries, while the CCC subsidized teachers' salaries to help them teach out-of-work young people specific jobs and trade skills (Cremin, 1988, pp. 457-463). As well, the government allocated the dispensation of surplus food to schools, and this act led eventually to the 1946 National School Lunch Act, and, as well, money to financially-strapped school boards, which kept many schools open when otherwise they would have closed (Button and Provenzo, 1989, pp. 254-255). The phrase "human capital" became the unofficial nickname of this U.S. period of governmental interventions, and that contrasts with the next two, which have national security as their origination/germination (Commager, 1976, p. 29).

From the "New Deal" acts that worked through post-Depression job and opportunity creation of the 1940s, the next two series of U.S. Governmental interventions came about as a result of conflicts. Both World War I and II's conflicts placed tremendous national economic and business concerns, as well as the obvious human loss.During WWI, the Federal Government used various public and higher education sites as means to train soldiers, and recruitment for the effort was also utilized from various campuses (Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, p. 206). World War II efforts were much more substantial and long-lasting than the previous war. Federal money was used to fund domestic money-saving efforts, first aid and enemy recognition factors, and recruitment in public schools.

As well, Congress gave more money to schools who served the war effort, and to help schools even more, selected training aids and hardware were left with participating schools when training was over (Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, page 206). However, higher education had even more interactive and comprehensive efforts. To begin, campuses were paid to help train selected war efforts, and loans were made available to college and university people who were majoring in medicine, technology, and communication, all areas the war effort needed for strategic planning and aid. However, as part of the country paying homage to its soldier and war effort people, via the 1944 Servicemen's Readjustment Act (the GI Bill). Later updated to included Korean Conflict, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, and now Afghanistan, money was and is made available for returning soldiers to attend colleges and universities, and by 1947 more than a million of them had enrolled. Not only were college rolls increased, unemployment was avoided, and curricula modified and rewritten to include these people into higher education (Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, pp. 206-207). A more subtle but no less important defense issue followed by the late 1950s.

Although there had been growing criticism that U.S. public school curriculum had been "watered-down" because of more people attending, be they veterans from the G.I. Bill or the ever-increasing immigrants from other countries. However, with the launching of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik, a precursor to "Star Wars" technology in the 1980s, a coalition of that criticism first sent out a national alarm, but then a plethora of legislation was enacted to bolster what appeared to be the lag of U.S. public school curricula to those of other countries-especially the USSR In 1958 Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and that bill had several contingencies. To begin, NDEA loans became available to teachers who would teach in depressed areas when they had graduated from their higher education sites (Spring, 1994, pp. 370-371).

Since a lack of science and mathematics instruction and technology was the most advertised reason Sputnik predated U.S. satellite efforts, substantial funding was allocated to public schools so that more technologically updated equipment could be utilized in science and mathematics classrooms could be made more efficient and effective. Higher education students found they had heavily increased scholarships, fellowships, and teaching assistantships to study for Doctoral degrees in science and mathematics. National pride in academia, specifically the hard sciences had been effected, and the country, especially the federal government, reacted swiftly and pervasively. Next, NDEA funds allowed for a host of new test and measurement policies to determine where the problems in student achievement were. Furthering the beginning of the original Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, renewed vigor and funding for various vocational education. Exploration of various new media, especially computers and the Internet, which had been a Federal data acquisition and dispensation tool for national defense, became a part of the ever-expanding U.S. public school curricula.

Though the NDEA was the wellspring of many national defense and pride initiatives, another movement began toward the Deweyian principle of listening to young and poor people's need. From the administrations of Presidents John Kennedy ("The New Frontier") and his successor Lyndon Johnson ("The Great Society"), and following the Civil Rights Movement, a Franklin Roosevelt-like bill became law. Research had indicated a real problem of racial and minority discontent was not being able to earn income to match the laissezfaire system (Cremin, 1988, pp. 653-656). To help people become more educated and fiscally competitive, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 became law. It's "Chapter" designations provided money for a wide variety of K-12 students, specifically targeting low income and previously ignored minority young people. Combined with the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (1981), the U.S. government was addressing societal and curricular inequities, job hunting and training skills of at-risk young people. By 1993, the Clinton administration asked to have Chapter I funding directed to schools with high concentrations of poor, migrant, delinquent, and at-risk children (Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, p. 118). That act eventually led to the "Goals 2000" initiatives of the Clinton and now the Bush administrations.

However, a most inclusive initiative, PL 94-142, began in 1975, but has been updated several times, and its title is self explanatory: "The Education for All Handicapped Children Act." Until the passage of this legislation, handicapped people of every description had to rely on the good will of teachers and school districts. It was now mandated that all handicapped people would get an equal education "in the least restrictive environment" with their mainstreamed peers (Hallahan and Kauffman, 2003, p. 26). Closely allied with this landmark bill were two others. The first was the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1990), which was a renamed EAHC; however, the second was even more far-reaching. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990), extended coverage of handicapped people between the ages of 3-21 to include their accommodations in public facilities, employment, transportation, and especially their civil rights (Hallahan and Kauffman, 2003, pp. 34-35).

1980s Commissions and Reports Presaging the Malcolm Baldrige Awards

The conclusion to this selected review of related literature up to the events of the Malcolm Baldrige Awards is not legislation in and of themselves. Rather, they are reports that have driven and now drive the supporters and critics of modern U.S. public school instruction. During the 1980s, there came a growing crescendo of criticism towards public schools from media reports, fundamentalist religious leaders, and public office seekers. Because of the coalition of these forces came a series of government-sponsored councils and commissions that met and published a variety of recommendations. The influence these reports had became the efficient and scientific approaches to K-12 education programs of "Goals 2000" legislation of the Clinton and Bush Presidencies (Pulliam and Van Patten, 2003, p. 181). They have also led to the block grant and grant-writing philosophies of exemplary and performing schools that now have become the "hidden curriculum" of public and higher education positions. Using Sikula's fine treatment of same, following is the list of 1980s commissions that are precursors to the Malcolm Baldrige Awards portion of this article (Houston, pp. 72-76):

"A Nation at Risk: the Imperative for Educational Reform," appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Education, "was the first and most important of the governmental report/interventions, and it has been the report most read and received more publicity than any other. Just as there was a call for science and math awareness in the Cold War, this document strongly suggests America was losing its curricular war in the age of technology, and that national economic interests were at stake. Constant references abound regarding a more measured, scientific way of K-12 teaching and learning. As well, the report strongly criticized teachers for lack of preparation, and curricula, for not involving master teachers in the preparation of more efficient curricula. That curricula itself must include four years of high school English, three of mathematics, science, and social studies, and six months of computer science.

"Making the Grade," submitted by the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Federal Elementary and Secondary Education (1983) addressed elementary and secondary schools. However, the focus was for the federal government to mandate the teaching and learning of English as a first language for all students, whatever other languages they spoke at home. As in the "A Nation at Risk," this report commended the use of master teachers to implement this plan. However, it also asked for the transfer of ESEA bilingual education funds to be committed to literacy programs, and that substantial research needed to be done, federal money should be appropriated to create small classes and added curriculum for failing students.

"Action for Excellence" (1983) was a report by 13 governors and 28 business specifically designed to speak to the problems of the national economy and international competition. The focus was on job performance, and there were two tenets that are much aligned with the scientific curriculum proponents in the Bobbitt regime. To begin, this report in an urgent tone, asked state governments to being and/or increase their involvements in the curriculum design of emphasis of the traditional literacy, science, and mathematics, as well as increasing the use of technology. "Action for Excellence" said U.S. prosperity depended on my efficient teaching, and that business people should not only become partners in public education outreach efforts. However, the report emphasized to public school administrators they should recruit current business and industry to become K-12 teachers.

"Educating Americans for the 21st Century: A Report to the American People and the National Science Board" (1983) was a continuance of the NDEA legislation written to the Sputnik scare. The report echoes the others during this 1980s time frame, replete with more and better emphasis being placed on the teaching and learning of mathematics and science so graduates could be more efficient employees and citizens. Alliances between public and higher education sites were advocated so the standards for these subjects could be more closely watched and implemented. However, the feature that set this report apart from the others was the first recommendation for states to begin to work together for both reciprocal certification devices, and then a national curriculum.

"Academic Preparation for College: What Students Need to Know and be Able to Do" (1983) was a complement to the previous NDEA-like criticism. This 10-year study echoed the theme of more and better science and mathematics instruction for U.S. K-12 public schools, but it proposed opening up colleges and universities to a more diverse group of students, especially minority and at-risk people. The only drawback to this report, as opposed to many of the others-there were no specifics regarding how the plans to strengthen minority and at-risk people, or any contingency plans regarding keeping those students in schools.

"America's Competitive Challenge: The Need for a National Response. Business-Higher Education Forum" (1983) was exactly what it read, for 16 corporate leaders and university presidents set up guidelines for U.S. industry to gain even more profits. The plan began with more intensive K-12 training as had several of the previously reviewed commission reports here, but there were specific recommendations from industry to provide more modern hardware and software to public schools. President Ronald Regan commissioned this committee, and his wishes were to urge education to look more closely at job-profiling high school curricula, and to give industry tax shelters as they trained and/or retrained their workers. No references were given or specified for public school teachers. However world trade issues echo throughout this report, and the recommendations for curricular emphases lay in mathematics, science, and foreign language curricular offerings.

"Staffing the Nation's Schools: A National Emergency, Council of Chief State School Officers, Committee on Teacher Certification, Preparation, and Accreditation" (1984) announced there was an immediate crisis in teaching. The report noted how serious the growing teacher shortage would be in the 1990s and beyond, and that the model being developed in the South in the 1970s helped that area attract and keep effective and caring teachers. The report was influential in forecasting the imminent public school teacher shortage, and, as well, it asked for more funding to study that problem and its possible cures.

"Educational Reform: A Response from Educational Leaders, Forum of Education Organization Leaders (FEOL)" (1984) is an answer to the growing criticism of public schools, and it is decidedly different in scope and intent from the other reports here. Though this report said there was a need to raise U.S. public school standards to help business and economic interests, it had several unique factors no other report had. To begin, the FEOL warned critics to be careful of putting too much emphasis on business interests, especially if those interests interfered with civil rights or personal freedoms. Second, instead of criticizing teacher and district curricular efforts, this report noted the low pay and working conditions for K-12 public school teachers, and strongly suggested the federal government pay a greater share of that responsibility. Because this report noted that teachers can not do all the work that is necessary to advance U.S. students' achievement and test scores, they suggested requiring at least two hours of homework per day per student, and lengthening schools days as much as fifty days to the current school calendar. Last, though the FEOL people supported testing, they indicated the various instruments should have degrees of diagnosing potential trouble spots for students, not just the answers they missed. It was the conclusion in this report that testing is but one part of understanding students' achievements and failures, and more study should be made to ascertain how to understand better the achievements of all students. That study should include commentary, scholarship, and programs from as many community sources as possible.

The last portion of this history section chronicled five separate divisions of U.S. governmental interventions. Those directives included vocational education acts, New Deal Acts, World War I and II legislation, National Defense Acts, and Elementary and Secondary Education Acts, and 1980s reform proposals. Each of these critical documents is closely aligned with the spirit of more quality improvement in U.S. public school curricular outreach. All of them focused on various lacks of achievement or performance in public and higher education curricula during the last half-century. One of them stands apart from the other regarding possible remedies and solutions: "Educational Reform." That report maintains and contains substantial criticism the other seven propose, but it is the only one advocating the continued research within the academic community to help solve U.S. public school and higher education institutes as well as the need to justify and incorporate useful interventions from outside sources to complete those tasks and responsibilities.

The eight commission reports just reviewed demonstrate increased emphases on quality in education. The emphasis has been filtered from industry. Application of quality techniques used in industry to education has become a new fashion statement in academia. According to America 2000 (U.S. Department of Education, 1991), "A new American school does not necessarily mean new bricks and mortar, nor does a new American school have to rely on technology; the quality of learning is what matters" (p. 15). Similar views are echoed in one other state department's report. The U.S. Department of Labor (1991) highlights the need for performance standards for schools, similar to the performance standards in industry. This paper continues with a discussion of the latest federal government sponsored initiative. The Malcolm Baldrige Awards rewards research-based and accountable initiatives in the field of education.

This portion of the paper is divided into four sections. The next section is a review of literature in the area of application of quality programs like TQM to education. It is followed by another section that presents a system's view of the Baldrige award for education. Following is a section that highlights the implications of the Baldrige Award on day-to-day classroom instruction. The last section summarizes the conclusions for this article.

Quality Management in Education:

One of the approaches which has gained popularity since the mid 1980s to improve industrial product quality is Total Quality Management (TQM). "TQM is a structured system for creating organization-wide participation in planning, and implementing a continuous improvement process to meet, and exceed customer needs" (GOAL/QPC, 1991, p.1). Owing to the demands of quality improvement, several education scholars began to look at the principles of TQM as a means to transform schools and the education system (Chao and Dugger, 1996). There were several factors that acted as drivers to implement TQM in education. The drivers include: 1] declining enrollment (Ray, 1996); 2] declining quality (Chao and Dugger, 1996); 3] facilitating change (Wiedmer and Harris, 1997); 4] increasing tuition; 5] changing demographics; 6] advancing technology; 7] intensifying competition among institutions; 8] demanding better quality graduates by employers; (Bosner, 1992; Rubach and Stratton, 1994); 9] declining retention rates; 10] recording students dissatisfaction with the overall service quality (Montano and Utter, 1999); and, 11] increasing governmental concern of rising tuition costs (Bosner, 1992). TQM can be applied to three areas in a university environment (Matthews, 1993). First, TQM can be beneficial in solving operational and administrative problems. TQM can be used in curriculum development, and the third application can be applied to teaching and research (Bass, Dellana and Herbert, 1996).

TQM has been applied to various levels of education. There have been experiments for the application of TQM at the elementary school level (Gellegos, 1996); high school level (Rappaport, 1996); and at the university level (Montano and Utter, 1999; Schmidt, 1998; Bass, Dellana and Herbert, 1996; and Ray, 1996). Several challenges of adopting TQM to education have come forward. Some of the issues include the following: 1] lukewarm response from the liberal arts community (Cobb, 1993); 2] concerns about change of focus and goals of higher education from pursuit of understanding to a job-placement service (Ray, 1996); and, 3] individual preferences and the loyalty towards personal teaching as well as research of the faculty members (Benke and Hermanson, 1992; Hubbard, 1994). One fundamental issue which has intrigued the academic community about the application of TQM is the definition of customer, producer, and market. Researchers have been questioning whether the students are the customers (Cobb, 1993), products or co-producers (Ray, 1996). The challenges associated with the educational application of TQM have forced some researchers to conclude that TQM principles used in industry may not be directly adaptable to education (Fusco, 1994).

Although experiments with these systems are still ongoing, a new quality movement has augmented TQM. This quality movement is the Malcolm Baldrige Award in education. This award was established in 1987 for manufacturing and service industries. This award is given by the President of the United States to businesses that apply and are judged to be outstanding in seven areas: 1] leadership; 2] strategic planning; 3] customer and market foci; 4] information and analyses; 5] human resource foci; and, 6] process management; and 7] business results (www.quality.nist.gov). Since its inception in 1987, this award has played a vital role in helping thousands of U.S. companies improve not only their products and services, their customers' satisfaction, and their profit motives, but also their overall performance (www.quality.nist.gov). It was felt the same exacting quality standards can boost the performance for educational institutions. Therefore, education was added to the possible recipient areas in 1999. As in the other categories, applicants must show achievements and improvements in the above mentioned seven areas. This paper examines the impact of the evaluation criteria on current educational curricula, and the direction academia will take as a result of this new quality paradigm.

Overview of the Baldrige Award in Education

The Baldrige Award was envisioned as a standard of quality to improve the efficiency of select U.S. organizations. The criteria are designed to help organizations enhance their competitiveness by focusing on two goals: 1] delivering ever improving value to customers; and, 2] improving total organizational performance (www.quality.nist.gov).

The seven areas of an organization on which the Baldrige Award concentrate are the following: (www.quality.nist.gov):

Leadership

This area examines how senior executives guide the organization and how the organization addresses its responsibilities to the public and practices good citizenship (www.quality.nist.gov).

Strategic Planning

This area examines how the organization sets strategic directions and how it determines key action plans (www.quality.nist.gov).

Customer and Market Focus

This area examines how the organization determines requirements and expectations of customers and markets (www.quality.nist.gov).

Information and Analysis

This area examines the management, effective use, and analysis of data and information to support key organization processes and the organization's performance management system (www.quality.nist.gov).

Human Resource Focus

This area examines how the organization enables its workforce to develop its full potential and how the workforce is aligned with the organization's objectives (www.quality.nist.gov).

Process Management

This area examines aspects of how key production/delivery and support processes are designed, managed, and improved (www.quality.nist.gov).

Business Results

This area examines the organization's performance improvement in the following key business areas: 1] customer satisfaction; 2] financial and marketplace performance; 3] human resources; 4] supplier and partner performance; and, 5] operational performance. The category also examines how the organization performs relative to its competitors (www.quality.nist.gov).

Figure 1 is a graphical representation of the Baldrige Award's application to education. Before the seven criteria of evaluation are implemented, the organizational profile has to be developed. For an educational institute, this profile gives an overview of its educational programs, its staff, faculty, and student profiles, equipment and facilities, legal/regulatory requirements, feeder and competitive institutes, market segment, supplier-stakeholder relationship, challenges in the areas of education, operations, human resources and community, and performance evaluation means.

Once the organizational profile has been summarized, the seven areas required by the Baldrige Award have to be addressed. The first area is the leadership of the organization. The leaders have to identify short-and long-term objectives and directions for the institute. The leadership has to create an environment to promote ethical values, equity for students, empowerment, innovation, safety, organizational agility, and organizational learning. The leadership also has to identify the performance assessment criteria and define a process to incorporate this assessment into process improvement. The leadership also has to identify clearly its responsibility to the society and stakeholders in order to set an example for responsible citizenship.

The second criterion is the strategic organizational plan. The organization should have a clearly-defined strategic plan which should outline a long-term plan for the organization. This strategic plan should follow this format: 1] identify how it addresses student and stakeholder needs, present and future; 2] expectations from students, staff and faculty; 3] a plan of action for the external factors like the environment, market requirement as well as competition; 4] a plan to address the update of the campus technology; and, 5] assessment techniques for the students present and future. The strategic plan also includes an implementation plan for current policies and processes. The last items the strategic plan should include are select performance measures on which the organization will be evaluated.

The third criterion is the description of the student, stakeholder, and market needs the organization will address. This section includes the description of the student segment that the organization will focus, and the market that the organization will cater. This section also describes how the organization plans to meet the special needs of students in terms of equipment, facilities and instructions. It also defines a process of identifying these special needs in order to address those in the future. It also defines the listening methods and systems for student to use. In this section, stakeholder needs are defined and a process of incorporating those needs into the curriculum is also mentioned. This section also defines ways of increasing student and stakeholder relationships. The system also has to have a complaint management process which handles and resolves the student and stakeholder complaints. This section also defines measurement devices (metrics) to be used to demonstrate student progresses, as well as stakeholder and market satisfaction with the organization's services.

The fourth criterion is the information and analysis of the organization. This criterion forms the backbone of the whole Malcolm Baldrige Award system. This section defines the different data elements that have to be collected and combined in order to review the current performance and resultant progresses. Processes also have to be identified for the evaluation of the data and implementing any required changes. The performance measures have to be defined which are going to indicate how the organization is meeting its objectives. This section also has to describe the infrastructure in terms of the software and hardware needed and updated to support the system.

The fifth criterion defines the organization's faculty and staff-focus. This section describes the following processes: 1] organizing and distributing the work; 2] promoting cooperation between staff and faculty; 3] taking steps for motivating the staff and the faculty; 4] performing evaluation and providing feedback to faculty and staff and identifying needs and qualifications for the future staff and faculty; 5] training and development of staff and faculty; 6] identifying areas and skills for the future training programs; 7] creating an environment for the satisfaction of the employees in terms of salary and benefits; and, 8] collecting information of employee satisfaction and making changes in case some issues are identified.

The sixth area to be addresses is the process management of the system, and it includes these processes: 1 ] designing of educational programs and offerings; 2] supporting the instructional and non instructional needs with infrastructure; 3] identifying the market needs, and incorporating that into the system by changing the syllabus or the facilities; 4] identifying the performance indicators of the system; 5] defining the process of collecting data for these performance indicators and incorporating that information into process improvements; 6] outlining the key student services to be provided, monitored and improved in the organization; and, 7] collecting data, analyzing and implementing process improvements.

The last section is the organizational results section. In this section all the performance measures and indicators are defined for student learning, faculty and staff related issues, stakeholder and market issues, financial issues and organizational effectiveness issues. The current magnitude of these performance measures and indicators is documented as well as the future intended levels defined.

Within this entire framework of needs, demands, regulations, expectations and future direction comes the-day-to-day instruction process at the educational institute. The framework can impose its rigid structure on the teaching process, making it merely another form of training. The next section identifies some issues faced in daily instructions that fall outside the periphery of this framework. In fact, these issues raise questions about the feasibility of having a rigid framework in order to address the issue of accountability in teaching.

Issues with Baldrige Criteria and Teaching

The Baldrige Award criteria assumes the quality of the product coming out of the educational setting can be regulated as the quality of the product comes out of any other industry. Though the intent of these criteria is to ensure that the educational institute functions like a well-oiled machine, there are few academic limitations which impose a challenge towards implementation of these criteria. The first issue is that although these quality criteria have been successfully implemented in an assembly line type of manufacturing environment, they do not fully meet the constraints faced by instructors in their day-to-day teaching. Instructors do not get the same type of raw material at the beginning of their class or semester. Students come with different strengths and weaknesses. They require different types and levels of processing, which in the case of colleges or universities are instructions during or outside the classroom. At the end of the class or the semester, students acquire different skill levels. They can get grades between "A" and "D" and be regarded as having satisfactorily met the course requirements. Therefore, the final product has to have large tolerances in its specifications. The presence of this large tolerance differs from manufacturing environments where raw materials demonstrate very tight tolerance limits, the processing is uniform, the environment in which the processing takes place is controlled, and final products have to be within very tight performance ranges. In order to address different students' needs, their instructors might have to change their styles continuously.

Of course the changes have to be made based on needs, and they have to be done scientifically. The Baldrige Award forces organizations to collect the data and measure performance to improve the students' educational quality. This process works very well in industry, but in academia turnaround time is very short. Teachers have to evaluate their teaching effectiveness, and they have to evaluate their students' needs daily. They might have only a matter of days or hours in order to collect data, analyze results, and change their instructional delivery process. Once the process has been changed, there are no guarantees it will work forever. In fact it might work well for one class time and might be a failure in another. Even worse, the lessons learned or the techniques developed for the day-to-day teaching in one semester for one group of individuals which has been very successful might not work the following semester for the same course.

This need for local instructional empowerment becomes an impediment in any type of systemic program which imposes rigid requirements. The other major need for the short- to non-existent lead time for data collection, analysis, and process changes requires so data should not be generalized for the entire system. Rather, it should be kept specific to a smaller sub-system for different instructors in different classes.

There are some advantages also of having the Baldrige Award criteria for education. These criteria can be used to perform feasibility studies regarding investment in both instructional and non-instructional supporting facilities. It can be used for defining future curricular uses, based on select market needs. It can definitely be used to motivate the staffs and faculties by addressing their concerns. However, the academic independence instructors have enjoyed needs to be guarded too, because the daily classroom instructional needs demand teacher flexibility. The idea of collecting data, coalescing that data into structured lessons, and then requiring instructors to teach that data can sounds like an efficient system. It might be an efficient system; however, it can lead to losses of teacher facilitation and flexibility.

Summary and Conclusion(s)

This article has demonstrated two complementary postulates regarding public and higher education curricula. To begin, as Santana has suggested, not to know history is to be doomed to repeat its mistakes. Therefore, the beginning of this article, after a definition and purposes of the Malcolm Baldrige Awards, the history of U.S. public school education curricular history was explored, and it was done so in context with the growth of the country. That is to say, the continuous and sequential linking of the development of religion, politics, and business and industry was the context schools developed. After the 1776 Revolutionary War, the newly organized government began to function as an overseer and partner to public and higher education. Colonial public schools began with agrarian-based Dame and Latin Grammar Schools grew rapidly, just as the country was doing. By the time the Industrial revolution occurred, there had been an incredible gain in populations, and schools were overcrowded and in need of reform. The Committees of 10 and 15 gave that reform, but they also added more scientific and accountable curricula as their answers to the problems. During this Morrill Acts (1862 and 1892), until the Baldrige Awards (1991), federal interventions have become increasingly an issue all schools have learned to accept and utilize. During the first part of the Twentieth-Century, curriculum constructors argued whether schools were preparation for jobs or preparation for knowledge. That debate rages to date.

This article next investigates the most important and significant governmental aid, bills, and commission reports that accompanied, supported, and shaped public and higher education. Those post-Morrill Acts categories in the early Twentieth Century began with industrial and vocational education, then continued with New Deal Acts, World War I and II legislation, National Defense Acts, and Elementary and Secondary Acts. However, the last category, "Post 1980s Reform Proposals," was given particular scholarly importance in this article, for the eight reform reports all suggested how deficient U.S. public and higher education schools had become, and they pointed to a number of shortcomings and remedies that might be applied. The latter and most constructive reports outlined a formula of applying more quality-laden principles to be implemented to all American educational sites.

Building on the history of the public school curricula, as well as the U.S. federal government's interventions leads this article to the study of the last two decades of the Twentieth Century. The success stories of the quality movement in industry made its way to public schools. Acts and action plans were instituted to copy the industrial successes to various American education systems. Starting with Deming's Total Quality Management (TQM), the direction has most recently veered towards the Malcolm Baldrige Awards. These awards emphasize seven aspects of any educational site. Those are Leadership, Strategic Planning, Customer and Market Focus, Information and Analysis, Human Resource Focus, Process Management, and Business Results. The seven criteria form a framework under which the day-to-day instruction has to be delivered. Although the concept on the surface looks very promising, yet there are some implementation issues that need to be addressed. This article recognizes and maintains the quality of non-instructional services can definitely be improved using Baldrige criteria. However, the varied nature of student populations that school teachers have to deal with requires and demands flexibility to react to a wide spectrum of intellect and curricula within their classrooms. The acceptable reaction to questions, problems, and errata has to be done very quickly-sometimes instantaneously. Classroom environments do not leave room for exhaustive data collection and statistical analysis, unlike the factory and industrial models on which they are based. Therefore, the rigid framework imposed by the Baldrige Awards might be counterproductive to academicians who rely on creativity, feedback, and intellectual exchanges as part of their professional repertoires.

Selected Bibliography

Acaro, J.S. (1995). The Baldrige award for education. Delray Beach, FL: St. Lucie Press. An excellent primer guide for the Baldrige awards, as well as their implications for business and education.

Bass, K.; Dellana, S. A. and Herbert, F. J. (1996). Assessing the Use of Total Quality Management in the Business School Classroom. Journal of Education for Business. July/August, Vol. 71, 339-343. This paper examines the application of TQM in the day-to-day teaching in a business school classroom environment.

Benke, R.J and Harmanson, R.H., (1992). TQM in the Classroom. Management Accounting. October, 14-15. This paper discusses the implications of implementing TQM in a classroom.

Bobbitt, J.F. (1918). The curriculum. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Bobbitt was the first professor of curriculum, and his most important work is this text. In it he demonstrates his ideas about scientific curriculum making, and, as well, his how activities curriculum construction.

Bosner, C.F. (1992). Total Quality Education?. Public Administrative Review. 52(5), 504-512. This paper introduces the term Total Quality Education which is the application of TQM in education.

Button, H.W. & Provenzo, Jr., E.E. (1989). History of education & culture in America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. This text is an excellent historical recreation of U.S. public education, and its cultural emphases are especially helpful.

Commager, H. S. (1976). The people and their schools. Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation FASTBACK 79. This fastback publication, although very short and concise, gives an excellent general background and backdrop to the social and political forces that have shaped U.S. public school curriculum.

Chao, C. Y. and Dugger, J. C. (1996). A Total Quality Management Model for Instructional Supervision in Vocational Technical Programs. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education. Summer (33), 23-35. This paper examines the impact of TQM in vocational technical programs. This paper proposes that the requirements of the employers be the sole criteria for deciding the curriculum of vocation education.

Cobb, G.W. (1993). Reconsidering Statistics Education: A NSF Conference. Journal of Statistics Education. 1(1). This paper examines the application of statistical quality control in teaching statistics in the classroom.

Cremin, L. A. (1988). American education. New York, NY: Harper and Row, Publishers. Cremin's text is one of the standards in educational history. His treatment of the various school progresses is extremely thorough and voluminously researched.

Fusco, A.A. (1994). Translating TQM into TQS. Quality Progress. May, 105-108. Fusco attempts to translate TQM techniques into more usable evaluation criteria for instruction quality.

Gallegos, G. (1996). Transforming America's Schools. Thrust for Educational Leadership. February/March, Vol. 25, 26-27. This paper emphasizes that in order to transform American schools the leadership has to be committed to implementing quality programs in different educational institutions.

GOAL/QPC. (1991). Education & Total Quality Management: A Resource Guide. Methuen, MA. This a handbook which describes the application of TQM to any operations.

Gutek, G.L. (1988). Philosophical and ideological perspectives on education. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. This text is most useful to the teacher and researcher of modern high school experiences, and it has an excellent theory-into-practice section with each chapter.

Hallahan, D.P. & Kauffman, J.M. (2003). Exceptional learners. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Hallahan and Kauffman's text has been one of the most popular texts for entry-level and graduate Special Education classes throughout the U.S.

Hirsch, E.D. (1996). The schools we need and why we don't have them. New York, NY: Doubleday. Hirsch has very definite ideas and concerns about the history and teaching of culture and cultures. His bibliography is thorough and helpful to researchers of this topic.

Houston, W.R. (Ed.). (1990). Handbook of research on teacher education. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company. This text is an invaluable researcher's tool for virtually any subject in elementary, secondary, and higher education. The various articles have been selected for their content, style, and applicability. It is an extremely helpful beginning tool for any education-related scholar.

Hubbard, D.L. (1994). Can Higher Education Learn from Factories?. Quality Progress. May, 93-97. This is one of the first papers that draws a parallel between the quality principles on the ship-floor and the possibility of implementing them in educational institutes.

Kliebard, H.M. (1986). The struggle for the American curriculum 1893-1958. New York: NY: Routledge. Kliebard's seminal text was one of the first to address historical curriculum issues, and his research and explanations of the various contributions to the field of elementary and secondary curriculum are icons in the field.

Matthews, W.E. (1993). The Missing Element in Higher Education. Journal of Quality and Participation. January/February, 102-108. This paper identifies the lack of collection of quality data as a major impediment in the growth of the educational systems. It also suggests that if this data was available a formal quality improvement program can be instituted.

Montano, C. B. and Utter, G. H. (1999). Total Quality Management in Higher Education. Quality Progress. August, 32(8), 52-59. This article analyzes the implications of implementing TQM in the non-instructional end of a university.

Pulliam, J.D. & Van Patten, J.J. (2003). History of education in America. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall. Pulliam and Van Patten have written not only an important source book, but they provided exhaustive complementary references and a fine annotated bibliography that is most helpful to other scholars.

Rappaport, L. A. (1996). Total Quality Management: One High School's Experience. Contemporary Education. Winter, Vol. 67, 72-74. This article illustrates a case study which involves the implementation of TQM in one high school.

Ray, M. A. (1996). Total Quality Management in Economic Education: Defining the Market. The Journal of Economic Education. Summer (27), 276-283. This paper examines who is the customer, who is the producer and what is the market if TQM is implemented in education.

Rubach, L. and Stratton, B. (1994). Teaming Up to Improve U.S. Education. Quality Progress. February, 65-68. This article proposes that the use of teams be encouraged to improve the quality of the American educational institutes.

Schmidt, K. (1998). Applying the Four Principles of Total Quality Management to the Classroom. Technical Directions. August, 58(1), 16-18. This paper examines the challenges associated with applying TQM in the classroom environment.

Smiley, F.M. (1992). Indoctrinations, "survey and curriculum science," and "transitional philosophy": A three-stage reassessment of Franklin Bobbin. Doctoral dissertation. Stillwater, OK: Oklahoma State University. This is the most exhaustive explanation of the entire body of writing by Franklin Bobbitt, and I am still happy with its thoroughness.

Spring, J. (1994). The American school 1642-1993. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Inc. This book has been a fixture in historical scholarship relating to K-12 education, and the style is most readable for both students and teachers.

Tanner, D. & Tanner, L. (1990). History of school curriculum. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company. This book is especially strong in 17th and 18th century history. The authors use of graphs, illustrations is most helpful, and their detailed footnotes and bibliography shows meticulous researching.

Thompson, M. (1951). The history of education. New York, NY: Barnes and Noble. Thompson's book has been in print for decades, but it is very useful for plotting various historical data into perspectives. The chapters detail every subject from European influences to specific influences on U.S. public education.

U.S. Department of Education (1991). America 2000: An Education Strategy. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. This report proposes the American educational strategy for the twenty first century.

U.S. Department of Labor (1991). What Work Requires of Schools. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. This report examines the possibilities of improvement in the educational system in order to ensure that the graduates from universities and colleges meet the requirements of the employers.

Wiedmer, T. L. and Harris, V. L. (1997). Implications of Total Quality Management in Education. The Education Forum, Summer (61), 314-318. This paper examines the post implementation results of the application of TQM in education and suggests possible improvements.

Willis, G., Schubert, W.H., Bullough, Jr., R. V., Kridel, C., and Holton, J.T. (Eds.). (1994). Westport, CN: Praeger. This text is unique. Not only does it provide a well-written historical monologue for curriculum scholars, but it also features first-source materials from which it quotes. This text is especially helpful to the serious historical U.S. public school curriculum scholar.

DR. MOHAMMED ARIF

DR. FREDERICK SMILEY

Carthage College, Kenosha, WI 53140

Copyright Project Innovation Summer 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved