Continuous Improvement in Education

In recent years, 'continuous improvement' has become a popular catchphrase in the field of education. However, while continuous improvement has become commonplace and well-documented in other industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing, little is known about how this work has manifested itself in education.This white paper attempts to map the landscape of this terrain by identifying and describing organizations engaged in continuous improvement, and by highlighting commonalities and differences among them. The findings classify three types of organizations engaged in continuous improvement: those focused on instructional improvement at the classroom level; those concentrating on system-wide improvement; and those addressing collective impact. Each type is described in turn and illustrated by an organizational case study. Through the analysis, six common themes that characterize all three types of organizations (e.g., leadership and strategy, communication and engagement, organizational infrastructure, methodology, data collection and analysis, and building capacity) are enumerated. This white paper makes four concluding observations. First, the three case studies provide evidence of organizations conducting continuous improvement work in the field of education, albeit at different levels and in different ways. Second, entry points to continuous improvement work are not mutually exclusive, but are nested and, hence, mutually informative and comparative. Third, continuous improvement is not synonymous with improving all organizational processes simultaneously; rather, research and learning cycles are iterative and gradual in nature. Fourth, despite being both iterative and gradual, it is imperative that improvement work is planned and undertaken in a rigorous, thoughtful, and transparent fashion

Six Sigma in Education

Purpose -- This paper is one of seven in this volume that aims to elaborate different approaches to quality improvement in education. It delineates a methodology called Six Sigma. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper presents the origins, theoretical foundations, core principles and a case study demonstrating an application of Six Sigma in a school-community partnership in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Findings -- The core principles underlying the approach are decreasing variability or unreliability in organizational work processes, eliminate waste or activity that does not add value to desired outcomes, identify defects and decrease their incidence, reduce the cost of work processes, and improve beneficiary/client satisfaction levels. The steps in this statistics-dependent method are design, measure, analyze, improve and control. Originality/value -- Few theoretical treatments and demonstration cases are currently available on commonly used models of quality improvement that might have potential value in improving education systems internationally. This paper fills this gap by elucidating one promising approach. The paper also derives value as it permits a comparison of the Six Sigma approach with other quality improvement approaches treated in this volume