Baldrige

I get to attend a half day workshop in May sponsored by the Iowa Quality Center. The Iowa center runs the Iowa Recognition for Performance Excellence - one of about 40 states that have a "baby Baldrige program". Most national winners have started their quality journey in a state program.

The workshop is called "The Making of a World-Class Organization". Two folks from Boeing will be conducting the workshop - Spong and Collard - their division of Boeing won the Baldrige Quality Award a few years ago. Yes they have a book too. Schools are organizations; can schools learn from outside their own sector? Baldrige folks (the genesis comes out of the quality movement) say absolutely! The framework will enable "any organization in any sector" to make large, sustainable, customer focused improvements. World Class eh? - that's what the Des Moines Register has been talking about for education in Iowa.

The Baldrige National Quality Program is administered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Links to the 1987 law that created the program and FAQ are available on the home page.

The Baldrige Awards are given to a few organizations each year. In 2008, 3 organizations were awarded the award. One has ties to Iowa - Cargill Corn Milling - with a large operation in Eddyville 10 miles south of Oskaloosa. A North Carolina school district (with a short 2-page summary of highlights) and a health system in Colorado also won Baldrige Awards in 2008.

The award started in 1988. The program initially had a real manufacturing focus. Service industries, health care, education, non-profit and governmental organizations have all gravitated to the Baldrige as a framework for achieving and sustaining organizational performance excellence.

The first education Baldrige winner was in 2001. This year's winner made a total of 8 awards to educational programs - some have been colleges. A complete list of all the winners and links to their application summaries are available. Information on each the K-12 winner are available - Chugach Schools, Pearl River, Community Consolidated and Jenks Public Schools, although called summaries - most are 50+ pages.

A short 3 minute video from one winner - the first governmental winner - an Army research and materials center (their full appplication - 50+ pages) :




The core of the Baldrige are the "Criteria for Performance Excellence". Education and health care each separate Criteria - the language is different - concepts are the same. Ex - customers in most organizations are known as students (and stakeholders) in education and patients in health care. The Criteria for education is a 92 page document. The link also has a self analysis resource.

The home page also has links to a self assessment tool and an "Are We Making Progress?" instrument. The Baldrige criteria has 7 components -
1 Leadership
2 Strategic Planning
3 Customer Focus
4 Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management
5 Workforce Focus
6 Process Management
7 Results

I'm excited about how we might use the framework at Future Pathways. I know our leadership team is committed to excellence; this approach is sound. It also takes a lot of work and disipline. No quick fixes; not much shooting from the hip. I've had the opportunity to be an examiner in both Minnesota and Iowa in previous lives. So exciting to be looking at it from education this time.