The failure of decades of school reform makes clear the need to “reconceive” the school system. More of the same will not bring the significant improvement we need. There already exist sources of different and creative solutions in the work of three great thinkers: W. Edwards Deming, William Glasser and Aristotle. This book will describe each and their essential concepts, their uses and implications for school improvement. To their insights I add my own acquired over 40 years experience in education. The applications of their ideas to education are my own.

W Edwards Deming is the great systems thinker and father of the Quality movement who showed the Japanese how to improve their cars. His basic premise is quite simple. Organizational problems that are ongoing and persistent are not caused by the workers. They are structural or systemic. Unless and until we identify and change these structural causes, despite whatever else we may do or spend, we will continue to experience their problematic effects.

I have my own phraseology to describe this: chronic problems have chronic causes. We perseverate on effects while ignoring their causes. We want to improve student achievement and student behavior, teacher performance, the competence of our workforce, etc. These are all effects. The only way to change an effect is to change its cause(s). This requires a whole new way to conceive of the educational system.

Our efforts to date have involved “more” not different or better. More money (even after accounting for inflation the cost of education has increased exponentially), more assessments, more state and federal mandates, more of the same causes. Our results have been more of the same effects. Indeed our efforts to “tinker with the system” as Deming describes it, rather than restructure it simply make matters worse, as we see in the education reform movement. While achievement nationally has remained stagnant since the beginning of the reform movement, student discipline problems and dropout rates have increased dramatically.

Deming essentially is telling us that the system sets the limits on the ability of workers to produce. It enables and empowers when and where it is efficient and disables and decreases productivity where it is not. To improve our school system’s productivity, learning or student achievement, we must continuously assess and improve the system.

William Glasser is another critical thinker who offers us a different optimistic and positive psychology that liberates and empowers individuals to effect and control their own lives. Unlike dominant behavioral psychology which teaches that we are “victims” of our environment, Choice Theory (AKA Control Theory) teaches us that we are free to make our own choices and shows us how we can do so. It describes a completely different view of our motivation (why we behave) and how we behave (i. e. how we control our behavior). Present motivational training for teachers is in behavioral psychology which does not work.

Aristotle offers us a time tested ethical structure to respond to the current moral ambiguity that plagues our culture. The deterioration in student discipline universally recognized by educators only reflects the larger moral decline of our general culture. An effective ethical or moral code is essential for not only improving our schools but our individual and organizational lives. An entire section of this book will be devoted to applying Aristotle’s ethical teachings in schools through character education. His teaching is culturally neutral, acceptable to virtually all cultures and religions as well as atheists.

While I certainly cannot rank myself among the three giants above, I can stand on their shoulders, recognize their monumental contributions and apply them specifically to education. It is these applications that can bring us an educational renaissance. Everything I will advocate, explain and describe has not only been successfully done by me but by many other teachers and administrators I have worked with over my four plus decades in education. While using these applications and supervising other using them a few examples of what I have seen include:
• Poor minority students in middle school classes of 35 – 38 consistently gain 3 to 5 years growth on standardized reading test in one year.
• Adults ages 18 to 50 in an evening high school equivalency go from illiterate to a GED in 2 or 3 years.
• A dyslexic 12th grade girl go from a 7th grade reader to a 12th grade reader in year.
When we remove systemic obstacles to learning students are capable of learning far more and better than they do now. In my view if we rate the ability of the system to teach and the ability of students to learn both from a low of 1 to a high of 10, I would
rate the system less than 2 and virtually all students 10.

We must recognize and use the power of systems thinking. We can extend and apply Deming’s ideas to transform all schools. Issues dealt with include dramatic improvement in achievement, discipline, motivation, teacher effectiveness and morale, inclusion, special education, learning disabilities, remedial and gifted programs, use of technology, resource allocation, systemic assessment and many more.

As our economy continues its downward trend, we are facing mushrooming debt at all levels of government, the public and private sectors. We can use systems thinking to change schools (systems) to improve and increase productivity while reducing required resources. We can apply systems thinking to all forms of organizations and save American education as well as our entire economy. Certainly significant improvement in our educational system will cause significant improvement in our economy.

This book will fully describe the systemic problems that are now serving as important obstacles to student achievement. It will also present cost effective alternatives that can increase student achievement geometrically, deal effectively with equity issues and improve teacher productivity and moral.

We can do more and better with less