Continual Improvement

Why Top-Down Reforms Are Failing Our Schools by Dr. Doug Stilwell

Why Top-Down Reforms Are Failing Our Schools

By Christina Dragonetti / December 10, 2024 / 0 Comments

Over the past 30+ years, in spite of various education reform efforts, average ACT scores have been about the same – until recently. In this post, Dr. Doug Stilwell examines the problems of top-down approaches to education policy, and offers a better alternative using Deming thinking.

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Reconsidering the Impact of Systems

By Christina Dragonetti / June 17, 2024 / 0 Comments

In this guest post, Dr. Doug Stilwell explores a transformative encounter with a student on the dual nature of systems, and how his thinking shifted.

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Extraordinary Results

By Christina Dragonetti / February 8, 2024 / 0 Comments

This is the final installation of Martin Laurent’s story of transforming a GM plant using the Deming philosophy. He shares the extraordinary results of his team’s efforts.

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Putting Deming Thinking into Practice

By Christina Dragonetti / January 25, 2024 / 0 Comments

Marty Laurent describes how he took Deming thinking into a GM plant. He adapted to meet the local conditions and, over nine years, his team achieved tremendous success. (Part 2 in a 4-part series.)

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Large red industrial fishing ship sinking from the back of the boat with the front end sticking up in the air.

Best Efforts on a Sinking Ship

By Christina Dragonetti / April 24, 2023 / 2 Comments

In this guest post by Ruthie Russo, she uses the metaphor of bailing out a sinking ship to show how traditional improvement efforts in education are missing the big picture – and harming students and teachers in the process.

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Deming for Ransomware and Cyberwarfare? Yes!

By Guest Post / February 22, 2023 / 0 Comments

In this guest post, Brian Barnier takes the Deming philosophy into the cyber security world. Inappropriate methods applied to cyber security problems are like flaws in a building’s engineering: they set people up for failure and burnout. Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge is the antidote, but few understand how it applies to cybersecurity.

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Looking through a lens that has a clear/crisp image of a dirt road leading into the distance, surrounded by a blurry image of the landscape photo beyond the lens.

Taking Deming into the 21st Century – and Beyond

By Christina Dragonetti / February 1, 2023 / 0 Comments

Introducing a unique new way to learn Deming online! DemingNEXT offers exclusive courses designed by Deming and adult learning experts.

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3 images of college students. From left to right: 5 students with backpacks waving at the camera, 2 students walking and talking while carrying binders and papers, and 4 students grouped around a laptop with one woman sitting at the keyboard. Everyone is smiling in all the photos.

Creating Joy in Learning: Deming in Education (Part 2)

By Christina Dragonetti / August 31, 2022 / 0 Comments

“Deming helped me not be a victim of the system.”
This is the second of two articles about Deming in education, based on an interview with David P. Langford. In this

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Young children sitting on a carpet in front of a teacher who is reading a book to them.

Joy in Learning: Deming in Education (part 1)

By Christina Dragonetti / August 12, 2022 / 0 Comments

Dr. Deming believed everyone is entitled to joy in work, and extended that to education as well. David P. Langford has worked to implement Deming in schools and education systems around the world, and in this first of two posts about his work, Christina Dragonetti relates how he got started and the impact of introducing the Deming philosophy – based on joy in learning – into classrooms.

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A white piece of paper crumpled with a paper airplane to the right, indicating one is transformed into the other.

Deming on Management: Innovation

By John Hunter / April 8, 2022 / 0 Comments

This guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog, is part of our Deming on Management series that aims to provide resources to help those transforming their management system to one based on Deming’s management ideas.

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