And best of luck to Knowledge Alliance and all of your members. Looking forward to continuing the work on behalf of innovation and knowledge generation.

–Circe Stumbo, on behalf of all of us at West Wind Education Policy Inc.

Loved your “Time Travel” list! Because the list is so on point, here is some evidence aimed at informing the following prediction: ” 2020 — The quality improvement movement in health care WILL FIND ITS WAY INTO EDUCATION (emphasis added) through…”

The quality movement does not have to find its way into education; it’s already there, just not as impactful as it could (and, I believe, needs to) become. Educator interest in quality began as early as the late 1980’s-early 1990’s, when:
• AASA, an early advocate of W. Edwards Deming, actually worked with him in bringing systems thinking to education;
• A number of insightful local education leaders nationwide began partnering with quality companies like Motorola, AT&T, Xerox, Bell South, etc. on continuous improvement efforts;
• The National Alliance of Business with other business and education organizations led the successful effort on the Hill to extend the Baldrige Award to health care AND EDUCATION;
• NQEC (the National Quality Education Conference) currently sponsored by the American Society of Quality (which has for years had an active education division) has hosted the sharing of education quality practices each year among interested practitioners and quality advocates for nearly 20 years;
• The National Quality (Baldrige) Program and many Baldrige-like state programs, beginning in the mid-1990’s, became a critical resource for quality training, support, networking, and recognition; and
* The American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) in Houston is working with growing numbers of school districts to improve their organizational processes, a growing priority during the current fiscal crisis when local educators need to elimintate inefficiencies/duplication so they can focus resources more effectively on improving overall performance.

I could go on and on, but here’s the main point: the ongoing challenge, I believe, has always been in aligning these quality-based initiatives that focus on process and systemic improvements over time with the more “dominant” education policy reform efforts focused on standards, assessments, and accountability (i.e., expectations and outcomes.) That said, the good news is the emerging opportunity, led by Knowledge Alliance members and IHI, to accelerate and scale the use of quality approaches, via mainstream education RESEARCH efforts, to document continuous improvement. The timing is good, particularly with Montgomery County Public Schools (MD) a very credible proponent of education excellence and equity, having earned the National Baldrige Award in 2010. As such, the district will be sharing its lessons learned/results during the 2011 National Quest for Excellence conference this year as well as at other quality in education venues.

There are a lot of folks, beginning with the National Baldrige Program staff, Terry Holliday (the KY state chief, himself a former senior Baldrige Examiner and local superintendent of Iredale-Statesville schools in NC, a Baldrige Award recipient) and ASQ staff, all of whom would certainly welcome KA’s advocacy and R&D involvement. I’ve written extensively about these issues, including the lessons learned from having co-directed BiE IN–the Baldrige in Education Initiative, a two year, six state quality collaboration nearly a decade ago – so just let me know if I can help connect you with any of these folks.

Here’s hoping that we can expedite your time travel prognostications – and a Happy New Year!
Peggy