At the same time, American education systems were ostensibly in a similar crisis, as detailed in the U.S. Department of Education national report "Nation at Risk"(1983). Some 23 million American adults, 13% of all 17-year-olds and 40% of minority youth were deemed functionally illiterate. The College Board's Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) declined from 1963 to 1980, with average verbal scores falling over 50 points and average mathematics scores dropping nearly 40 points. Business and military leaders complained recruits could not perform increasingly technical job functions without remedial educatio

Surprisingly, there is not one best way to implement TQM. Every example cited approached the application from a different angle and with different emphasis, focused on their particular situation and defined needs and priorities. Every case followed some version of the TQM methodology listed in Table 2 from Frazier ((1997) pg. 65. All cases used a subset of the quantitative quality tools and dimensions of quality listed in Table 3 from Downey (1994), pg 83-89 and Bonstingl (1992) Appendix 1 and Table 4 from Downey (1994), pg 9.

There are many critical processes within the educational community that are very similar to processes within other industrial and service organizations, such as staff development, payroll, facilities management, purchasing, and strategic planning, and TQM should be applied immediately in these areas. However, for the most part, the education profession is light years behind those organizations who are successfully implementing the concepts of quality management. It will take the hard work and creativity of determined pioneers to make quality improvements within the unique culture of the educational system. It will also take time, as sustained results were not seen in the manufacturing or service sectors for more than twenty years. TQM is clearly not a panacea for all the problems of American public education, and quality itself is a means to an end, not the end itself. But TQM holds significant promise for the substantial changes needed in our education systems to face the challenges of the twenty-first century. The key is just to get started.

Despite successful examples, skepticism for broad application of TQM across education systems is warranted. The many conditions which enable TQM successful in corporations are not paralleled in education systems. Schools do not have a standard, uniform product and their raw materials (students and content) differ significantly. There is no "assembly line" to optimize and ex

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Success Surprisingly, Total Quality, Quality Management, Education Despite, War II, Tests SAT, Woodbury Connecticut, School York, Sitka Alaska, Nation Risk1983, total quality, quality management, education systems, total quality management, quality improvement, 1994 pg, american education systems, common themes, cotton 1994, downey 1994, american corporations, listed table, siegel byrne 1994, downey 1994 pg,