Big data has captured the imagination of many corporate executives, but it has its limitations. When evaluations are turned into numbers and used to rank employees from best to worst, it crushes motivation. This was W. Edwards Deming’s advice many years ago, but then Bill Gates of Microsoft and Jack Welch of GE emerged as gurus of stack ranking.
But, lo! New studies confirm that stack ranking has negative consequences.
An article in the business section of the Néw York Times reports that stack ranking hurts morale.
“Big Data has made it possible to measure employee performance more thoroughly than ever. But two recent studies offer a warning: Be careful about how you deploy that data.
“Many managers assume that distributing a ranking of their employees’ performance is an effective motivational tool, said Iwan Barankay, an associate professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The idea is that lower-ranking employees will strive to improve, while higher-ranking ones will work to maintain their edge.
“Professor Barankay sought to test this assumption in a study of 1,500 furniture sales workers that he conducted over three years in North America. One group of sales workers was shown how their sales ranked compared with their colleagues. Another group was not shown a comparison, but only their individual results.
“Professor Barankay found that the sales representatives who did not know how they ranked achieved higher subsequent sales than those who were aware of their comparative ranking. The results of the workers who had received high rankings neither improved nor worsened.
“Human nature combined with simple math caused the lower-ranking workers to falter, according to Professor Barankay. Most people optimistically assume that they are above average in their performance, he said. But real life is not Lake Wobegon, and most people, when measured against one another, will inevitably rank as average or below average. For these people, seeing their rank is demoralizing, causing their performance to wilt.”
Now it is time to read Deming. I recommend chapter 9 of Andrea Gabor’s book about Deming titled “The Man Who Discovered Quality.” Deming was adamantly opposed to perfoance pay or anything that undermined employees’ morale and collaboration. His message was to choose your employees well and give them the support to succeed. Most failures are system failures. Don’t blame the frontline workers for problems caused by the system.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Toyota was the first major car company to adopt Demming’s ideas. All the American car companies refused before Toyota accepted his idea. The rest is History.
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If Demming or any one else in this country had an idea to improve education will the current educators have accepted it? I would say the the current crop of educators cannot be compared to Toyota and they are just the same as the old American manufacturing companies. Reject all new ideas before they can be put to test. This is not caution but true disbelief in all other sectors of thought.
Many years from now (future) it may be a different story.
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All of the current ideas of reform have been “put to the test” for the last 30-plus years. Do we need more time to experiment? Or do you think (like Gates) we need ten more years to see if it works?
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Those who are truly educators know Demming was right. It’s politicians forcing these policies on education who are displaying an ignorance of human nature.
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How long must we keep trying the reformers “new ideas”?
I’d think that decades of evidence showing they are as unworkable as they are ineffective should suffice.
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My experience in public education is quite the opposite. I taught in a diverse suburban New York City district where we were constantly trying to improve our performance and craft. The district brought in consultants from Bank St., NYU and Teachers College as well as Richard Allington, Steven Krashen, Nancy Atwell, Linda Darling Hammond and others over the years, and teachers served on improvement committees after school for no remuneration. We had school and personal improvement plans; and we took our responsibilities seriously. We had a five year curriculum review cycle so we embraced change because the teachers were part of the process. My school received a Blue Ribbon from the DOE for our achievements.
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Raj –
How do you know what educators are doing in the classroom? I’ve taught for over 30 years, & I’m (like most of my colleagues) always trying new ideas because I don’t want to be a “stick in the mud” – obviously, those ideas that I know have been successful for me, I keep; but if I’m not happy with my results, I try another approach. Young teachers bring new ideas, & they love to hear about our methods as well – the whole idea is to do what’s best for all students, & we work very hard to do just that!
This is part of the beauty of teaching – you get to be creative along with working with teens & sharing your passion for a given subject!
If I’m going to be ranked against my peers, I don’t think I’d want to share my ideas, & I know most of my colleagues would probably turn selfish as well… it’s logical because it’s human nature!
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Your premise sounds like it comes straight from the “reform” crowd. The problem isn’t with education. It is with the extreme level of poverty in this country and the unfair funding of public education. The reform crowd simply chooses to ignore this. I taught for 25 years in a public H.S. and know first hand how most teachers tried different approaches to improve the educational results. What worked in one class didn’t necessarily work in another class. Teaching is a dynamic process that requires flexibility throughout the teaching day which is the exact opposite of what is happening today. In fact I’ll go one step further: The “reform” crowd couldn’t care less about education. What they care about is the money they could make from the public education funds.
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Raj,
In my experience teachers are very open to trying new things. Many welcome having professional autonomy to try new things individually or collaboratively as part of a grade level or content area team. Most teachers are open to implementing new ideas from their school or district in good faith provided they are not harmful to students and the teachers receive adequate notice, professional development, and other support to do the work well.
There are hidebound individuals in every profession, but I have never worked in a district where that described the overall educator culture.
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Formercheesehead and Michael: The best advice I ever got was from Nancy Atwell: “If what you are doing works, do more of it; if it doesn’t work, stop it.” I wish reformers understood this as most of the “reforms” are political, not evidence based.
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Raj, I do not understand you. Your phrase “anyone else” would include teachers. So that means you are asking if teachers had ideas, would they listen to themselves? Interesting thought.
You have a misunderstanding of how evidence-based and rational thought work. Ideas are not rejected before they are implemented in the classroom. Rather, a person has an idea, then evidence should support it (or at least not reject it), then it must be independently verified, ideally several times. Then it is put into practice. This burden of proof is meant to encourage caution. So understand, just because someone does not agree with you and is skeptical, that is a good thing and a constructive approach.
Think of what would happen if “any one else” could suggest mixing up whatever they think is effective from the local drugstore, then insist we all start injecting their “new ideas” into kids to cure disease. When parents and doctors object, this “any one else” storms off in a huff because “this is not caution but true disbelief in all other sectors of thought”.
Public education has helped propel America to global dominance. Only fools reject what works just to try something and see what happens when so much is at stake. Reformers have pursued a dangerous, scorched-earth approach with no peer-reviewed evidence their free market, test-driven, rank and yank ideas work. If they are allowed to continue, many years from now it will be the SAME story. This new breed of Reformers will find they have failed, throw up their hands, blame parents/teachers/students, and retreat to their gated communities, leaving teachers to pick up the pieces and clean up the Reformers mess.
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What is surprising is that they actually had to study this to confirm the obvious. With the current climate in education, this is exactly the outcome they are expecting. Frustrate and demoralize enough teachers, and they will quit. Then, we can invade the school and staff it with TFA or some other “off brand” teacher.
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I’m surprised the article didn’t cite Microsoft’s “lost decade” which was mainly attributed to their stack ranking policies. Virtually every former employee will tell you that is the reason they left. Promoting competition in a collaborative environment stifles creativity and productivity.
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Mike Turner: I will provide the link—
Link: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer
I provide an excerpt from the above in a comment below by me, but let me give a little more as a teaser:
[start]
“I was told in almost every review that the political game was always important for my career development,” said Brian Cody, a former Microsoft engineer. “It was always much more on ‘Let’s work on the political game’ than on improving my actual performance.”
Like other employees I interviewed, Cody said that the reality of the corporate culture slowed everything down. “It got to the point where I was second-guessing everything I was doing,” he said. “Whenever I had a question for some other team, instead of going to the developer who had the answer, I would first touch base with that developer’s manager, so that he knew what I was working on. That was the only way to be visible to other managers, which you needed for the review.”
I asked Cody whether his review was ever based on the quality of his work. He paused for a very long time. “It was always much less about how I could become a better engineer and much more about my need to improve my visibility among other managers.”
In the end, the stack-ranking system crippled the ability to innovate at Microsoft, executives said. “I wanted to build a team of people who would work together and whose only focus would be on making great software,” said Bill Hill, the former manager. “But you can’t do that at Microsoft.”
[end]
The rheephorm use of stack ranking/forced ranking/rank-and-yank/burn-and-churn is, quite literally, the opposite of ensuring quality and innovation and flexibility.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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Yep, Aspiration Truncation Systems.
Value not VAM.
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Microsoft has long done stack ranking. The results are pretty obvious.
Seriously.
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Microsoft pits employee against employee with his stacked ranking. Gates is WRONG.
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And the product shows it.
Would stacking employees generate an iPhone?
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Many things may arguably ‘work’ in specific contexts for specific times.
That doesn’t mean it’s right, morally, ethically or even for the sake of efficiency or profit, ultimately.
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Sun Tzu said, “A leader leads by example, not by force”
If Gates and his cabal of oligarchs were leading by example, all of their children would be in public schools that are falling in line and doing exactly what these RheeFormers want them to do with the Common Core rank and yank high stakes testing.
Their children would be in lock step classes with a 100 students per teacher with teachers following Pearson’s scripted lessons while the kids stare at computer screens all day.
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Sun Tzu also said “All wafare3 is based on deception” and this is exactly what the RheeFormers are doing 100% of the time.
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“And, if these idiot technocrats wanted to apply real learning from business measurement to education, they would do well to scrap VAM and think, instead, in terms of worker-directed continuous quality control of the kind implemented, famously, in the Japanese auto industry, in which the workers on the line did their own evaluations, in concert, and were rewarded for their successful innovations (rather than having their autonomy removed and being themselves robotized). The great pioneers of quality control–William Edwards Deming and Joseph Moses Juran, were first and foremost humanists. They understood that work is done by humans and that humans require autonomy and intrinsic motivation. Key principles of Deming’s Total Quality Management movement included “Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively,” “Eliminate slogans, exhortations,and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity” for “such exhortations only create adversarial relationships,” “Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factor floor,” “Eliminate management by objective,” “Remove barriers that rob the worker of his [or her] right ot pride of workmanship.”
People who know nothing of the history of industrial quality control and of its astonishing successes will be surprised to learn that such learnings as these are what the engineering types who studied quality improvement in the workplace and turned it into a true science came to. Exactly the opposite of what these idiot technocrats are now doing in our schools. Amusingly, the technocrats aren’t even familiar with the basic principles of modern industrial management, which run precisely counter to all that they are doing.”
-The low down from Robert Shepherd.
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I also recommend: W. Edwards Deming, THE ESSENTIAL DEMING (2012, Joyce Orsini, ed.).
Important point: Deming made many cogent observations about for-profits and non-profits, private and public organizations—his driving interest was how to maximize quality (hence his nickname, “The Father of Quality”). He was a numbers & stats guy that was smart enough to know that figures don’t replace the kinds of specific expertise needed in particular enterprises but, when properly used in conjunction with task-specific knowledge, can be a powerful force for success.
Take mathematical intimidation, obfuscation and outright ludicrous invention away from self-styled “education reform” and what do you have? “There’s not there there.”
From p. 55 of the above book, in a 1992 piece under the subsection “Numerical goals”:
[start]
A numerical goal is a number drawn out of the sky. A numerical goal outside the control limit cannot be accomplished without changing the system. A numerical goal accomplishes nothing. What counts is by what method. Three words. I you can accomplish a goal without a method, then why weren’t you doing it last year? There’s only one possible answer: you were goofing off. May the numerical goal be achieved? Yes. We can make almost anything happen. But what about the cost? What about the loss? Anybody can achieve almost anything by distortion and faking, redefinition of terms, running up costs.
[end]
I would remind folks of Campbell’s Law (Dr. Raj Chetty calls it “Campbell’s Conjecture”) but just look at that last sentence: take your [forget that no-account self-aggrandizing co-teacher!] students from the 13th to the 90th percentile on a wondrous joy ride with Michelle Rhee; get 100% charter school graduation rates; make a [still questionable] 2% increase in graduation rates a 12% increase under John Deasy in LA Unified by getting rid of those pesky ‘non-strivers’ [thank you, Mr. Michael J Petrilli!] and…
I know there has be someone who will write that Deming didn’t mean the “ed bidness.” Well, the rheephormista mentality goes way back. In the same article from which the above was excerpted, the last three paragraphs:
[start]
The worst example of numerical goals came out of our own Department of Education. We did it. On the 18th of April, 1991: Numerical goals. No method. No method suggested. Just numerical goals drawn out of the sky. Such nonsense in high places. Think of the harm done by those numerical goals put out by our Department of Education. Unwitting, innocent people read them and do not understand what is wrong. The harm done cannot be measured. The high school graduation rate will increase to 90 percent. Why stop at 90? If you don’t have to have a method, why not make it 95? 98?
Every school free of drugs. We should hope so, but where’s the method?
And we decided that American schools were expected to produce extraordinary gains in student learning. Performance standards. Could anything be worse? Individual schools that make notable progress deserve to be rewarded. Do they? What would happen?
[end]
Uh, what would happen? Howzabout, just two examples: many years AFTER he wrote the above (1992; he died in 1993) we saw such miracles as Texas ed under Rod Paige (Arne Duncan before Arne Duncan as Sec of Ed) and the Atlanta cheating scandal.
Link: https://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/the-atlanta-cheating-scandal-and-the-texas-miracle/
I have referenced it many times on this blog. I simply remind folks to google “Vanity Fair” and “Microsoft” and “lost decade” and “stack ranking.”
Just part of one paragraph of a fine article:
[start]
Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. The system—also referred to as “the performance model,” “the bell curve,” or just “the employee review”—has, with certain variations over the years, worked like this: every unit was forced to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor.”
[end]
Pardon the overly long comment.
😎
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“There’s not there there.”
Should read: “There’s no there there.”
And in the first excerpt: “I you can accomplish a goal without a method” should read “If you can accomplish a goal without a method”—
Please excuse.
😎
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Now how about a post that connects these ideas to stack ranking students…
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Kills appropriate, intrinsic motivation for students, is demoralizing and dehumanizing generally, but the goal for the deformers is ranking and yanking teachers. So, demoralizing and dehumanizing on multiple levels, as well as stressing, humiliating and disenfranchising.
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Professor John Seddon warned us about Sir Michael Barber, presently head of Pearson International, formerly adviser to Tony Blair in the UK, formerly employed by McKinsey and Company, a global management consulting firm who also employed David Coleman.
Connect the dots and you end up with a command and control outcome based set of global standards known as the Common Core with data collected by Microsoft/Bill Gates, to be used as Marc Tucker envisioned it back in 1992 by workforce training boards to rank and select workers to plug into dumb jobs to make corporations rich. But capitalism with its competitive attitude is not useful for this transition to a global workforce of unquestioning drones. Communism may be the transitional state of affairs until money as currency has been replaced by carbon credits.
The ultimate goal is Technocracy, as envisioned by Zbigniew Brzezinski and those who believe the United Nations should be in charge of rationing energy use for the world. (Since his Encyclical, that would include Pope Francis.)
“The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.” – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, 1970.
Technocracy Project Requirements:
• Register on a continuous 24 hour per day basis the total net conversion of energy
• By means of the registration of energy converted and consumed, make possible a balanced load
• Provide a continuous inventory of all production and consumption
• Provide a specific registration of the type, kind, etc. of all goods and services, where produced and where used
• Provide specific registration of the consumption of each individual, plus a record and description of the individual (Scott, Howard et al, Technocracy Study Course, P. 232)(bold added)
The Common Core is essential to this system because it creates the idea in some people’s minds that personally identifiable data collection can provide schools with important information that will help children learn. Massive data collection ongoing.
The NSA is essential to this system because it creates the idea in some people’s minds that spying on every citizen and non-citizen is important and necessary to keep us safe. Massive data collection ongoing.
Stop the data collection. Throw a monkey wrench in the system. Local school districts have to see their role in this. We can’t just go along to get along.
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Four arrogant investors from Global Silicon Valley Advisors have written a pseudo patriotic manifesto and fifteen-year “battle plan” to install market-based education as the new normal in America and globally.
“Revolution 2.0: How Education Innovation is Going to Revitalize America and Transform the US Economy,” begins and ends with a narrative about the revolutionary spirit in America. The authors of this slick 306-page report are Michael Moe, Matthew Hanson, Li Jiang, and Luben Pampoulov. All are investment and asset managers at Chicago-based Global Silicon Valley Advisors. This report is filled charts, brand names, and growth curves selected to show investors the potential for profits from education, especially from educational technology and innovations spurred by entrepreneurs.
The authors of the battle plan have far more brass and bravado than expertise in education. They want to make America number one, top of the heap, on eight indicators: “The #1 learning society in the world; #1 in entering kindergarten prepared; #1 in PISA; #1 in high school completion rates; #1 in college completion rates; #1 in graduating engineers, scientists and computer programmers; #1 in career placement rates; and #1 in worker productivity.”
The authors/investors describe these “big, hairy, audacious goals (BHAGs)” as “ultimate objectives.” There is nothing noble, heroic, or patriotic about their battle plans. They want to demolish public education while feeding at the trough of tax subsidies for many programs.
In the following, I offer an edited and structured version of the rambling list of points offered as a “battle plan.” Taxpayers will foot the bill for most of these BHAGs including cash from personal savings, along with contributions from employers and foundations.
A. Strategic Moves (Start date of July 4, 2012)
1. Focus on marketing “innovation” and “product effectiveness.” “Make “Return on Education,” ROE, the objective measure of a good or bad education product.” Do not refer to “education reform,” “for-profit” and “not-for-profit.”
2. Propose “innovation” as the solution to “our educational problem.”
3. Delegate authority for educational policy to self-appointed “Representatives of Students and Education Innovators of the United States of America” (i.e., the authors of this battle plan).
4. Eliminate locally elected school boards.
B. Accountability.
1. School outcomes. Publicize “each school’s student progress, academic achievement, and graduation rates,” from K-12 through post secondary programs. (This assumes bricks and mortar schools exist.)
2. Program outcomes. Require “Truth in Education” contracts. Students and parents must read and sign before they enroll in a program. The contract will show “the percentage of students that graduates (sic), the number of years it takes to graduate, the percentage of graduates that find a job within 12 month (sic), the average starting salary, and the average student loan amount.”
3. Customer ratings. Entrepreneurs will publicize consumer ratings of all schools, administrators, teachers, and ROE for educational products and services.
4. Credit for proficiency. In K-12 and higher education, replace “seat time” in courses with credit for completed modules and demonstrated “proficiency.”
5. Proof of Proficiency. Very citizen has a “virtual credentials wallet” with records from every completed competency-based module, other information on achievements, and “your knowledge score” in a form suitable for employers and academic institutions. College students take courses online, from anywhere, but can earn a “disaggregated” degree from a “home campus.”
C. Standards, Curriculum, National Economy
1. Adopt the Common Core Standards in all 50 states. This allows “innovators to develop disruptive, high-impact content.” (Battle plan failed on Common Core).
2. Redo “No Child Left Behind” with national standards and real penalties and rewards for schools based on teaching effectiveness. (The new version is unlikely to comport with this battle plan).
3. Core curriculum. Require study of computer language beginning in kindergarten. Require students to be “trilingual” by the time they graduate from high school—English, a foreign language, and computer language.
4. Incentives for STEM. Recruit the top 0.1% of global STEM students to American higher education with an endowed scholarship, provided these recruits live in the U.S. for 5 years post-graduation.
5. Incentives for STEM. Change immigration policy to allow any master’s or Ph.D. graduate from a foreign and accredited STEM program to receive permanent residence status.
6. Incentives for STEM. Create financial rewards for teachers who produce the most students who can win a STEM “Presidential Fitness Award.” Fund publicity for this award.
7. Academic Athleticism. Create an “Academic Olympic Committee” led by the President that treats our international academic results like we do the Olympics.”
D. Teachers & Teaching
1. Recruitment. Recruit teachers from the top 1/3 of their undergraduate class.
2. Recruitment. Celebrate and scale up Teach for America. (Teach for American is in GSA’s investment portfolio).
3. Pay. Give financial support to the top 10% of college graduates who will teach for two years in public schools (Viewed as an act of patriotism comparable to military service).
4. Pay. Must be “100% aligned with teacher effectiveness, performance of students, and market demand” for teachers in specific subjects.
5. Pedagogy. Teacher will be a coach more than a lecturer.
6. Pedagogy. Use adaptive technology to facilitate individualized pacing for instruction.
E. Finance.
1. Early childhood. Guarantee “quality early childhood education” with a universal voucher.
2. Pre-school to grade six. Buy every student in these grades a tablet computer.
3. Every student. Funds follow the student. Other resources go to “schools of choice—charter schools, virtual charters, and other alternative programs.” (Seems to assume funds are from local, state, and federal funds).
4. Every student. Create tax-deductible savings accounts. These earn tax-free interest while funds are invested. Students must spend these funds within 5 years. Otherwise the account balance and earned interest becomes taxable. For adults, employers may offer education accounts similar retirement and health savings accounts
5. Tax perks for individuals. Offer a tax deduction every April 15th for dollars spent on out-of-pocket learning.
6. Tax perks for business. Give businesses tax credits for investing in employee training and development. Create a national index for measuring how well corporations invest in employee education.
7. Teacher pay. Increase merit pay for the best 300 (sic) teachers.
This report ends with a parody of the original The Declaration of Independence. It demeans public education in the United States as “insufferably” incompetent, noteworthy for “a long train of ineffectiveness and neglect” and for “pursuing invariably the same objective of reducing America’s competitiveness in the future.”
The authors/investors then cite some “self-evident truths” and “unalienable rights”…”among these are access to information and technology, great teachers, cost-efficient learning, and the lifelong pursuit of knowledge.”
In the grand finale, the marketers of markets appoint themselves “Representatives of Education Innovators of the United States of America.”
In this role they “solemnly publish and declare, that our students ought to have the chance to succeed, that they have access to the best learning technologies, and that as free and independent learners, have the full power to choose their path to success in life. And for the support of this Declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
There is not much honor here, nothing close to a coherent vision for education, no need for civic education, nothing sacred other than seeking profits from marketing edu-technologies and the tax subsidies for a buyer-beware market in education.
Retrieved from gsaadvisors.com
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Thank you for posting this Laura.
The correct link for more information is:
http://gsvadvisors.com/about/team/
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Thanks Dawn. The whole report can be found by typing in the title. I am still looking at this tome and hope to do an inventory of the “innovators” they are funding or pushing as investments. KIPP and TFA are among a long list of favorites. Both of these have a batch of investors and foundation supporters.
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I guess they are hoping if they succeed globally, no one will notice because education everywhere will stink and we’ll be in another dark ages.
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We can pursue this plan when Bill Gates is declared emperor.
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As a librarian, I can relate to this study. I often observed optional tutoring programs for students. Who took advantage? Not your failing students, rarely the “D” students, sometimes those average “C” students, but most often the “B” students who wanted an “A”.
Those who have want more. The have nots . . . Well, let’s just say that it’s easier to stay on the bottom than to try and rise to the top.
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When our daughter was in high school she became a tutor who went to the library after school several days a week to voluntarily help individual students who needed it in math and English. She’d come home with stories of kids who wanted her to do all their homework for them and were not interested in learning how to do it.
Our daughter, who graduated from HS with a 4.65 GPA and went on to graduate from Stanford a year ago, refused to do the work for anyone who was unwilling to do it themselves. She brought a lot of stories home of kids who made it difficult for teachers to teach. Once in one of her English classes, every time the teacher turned around to write something on the board, some of the boys would leap up and pull their shirts up to flash their naked torsos at the girls.
I complained to the principal and administration sent a counselor to ask the boys to behave or else. I never did find out how that worked.
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Lloyd – my daughter who taught one year as a high school math teacher at the age of twenty one would have the male students hit on her. Sometimes they even put their phone numbers on their test papers.
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It happens to the men teachers too where young teenage girls hit on them and a few, a very few, can’t resist. I know, men teachers sometimes hit on the girls too but it is a two way street. I know one teacher who ended up marrying one of his students who made her mind up to go after him from the beginning when she was a student in his 9th grade English class and he was a new teacher in his twenties. She came back as a junior and asked him if she could be his student assistant and help correct papers for him. When she was a senior, she was still his student aid and when she turned 18, they started dating with her parents permission. Right after she graduated from HS, they were married. I’ve known other teachers who married former students. One teacher was in his 50s when he married a former student who came back to visit him when she was 19. The marriage didn’t last because she wanted children and he didn’t.
When I was teaching journalism, I overheard some of my female students talking about one of the younger male teachers and how hot he was. One of them came back after she graduated from HS and was in college and kept coming back to visit him with an obvious intent to become closer to him but he was clueless. I even told him she was interested in him and he refused to believe it. He was a good Catholic, and although he admitted he was tempted, he refused to ask her out on a date.
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Interestingly, stack ranking is exactly what our law office has done to secretaries, systematically, for the past 5 years, in order to fire those who were at the top of the salary/benefit scale, who had been with the firm 25 or more years. Literally, a memo went out to the practice group partners telling them to rank the secretaries in the group, and if they did not know the names of the secretaries in the group, to contact and work with personnel. Since 2000, the secretarial staff has shrunk from 120 to 38, with the last 22 firings (they requested volunteers and got some) occurring in the past 1.5 years. Those left do more, for less pay, and yes, happy to just have jobs. This is at-will employment, and still HR likes to play games with the health and emotional well-being of the employees. HR must get a thrill out of these manipulations.
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“Most failures are system failures. Don’t blame the frontline workers for problems caused by the system.”
But by focusing on the “system” (and I do believe the gist of what is being said is right) as the locus of the failure, one then dismisses the very human culpability of those who put the “system” in place. That system failure is actually a human failure and the sloughing off the blame from the human to the system is just one way that the “bosses”, i.e., management and/or administration avoids the criticism/rebuke/censure that should rightly be attributed to them.
And, my reading of Deming over the years is that he is looking to get beyond the blame game so as to remove obstacles in improving the “process”. At the same time, by overlooking who ultimately has that responsibility (hell, they’re the ones getting paid the big bucks for instituting those processes/systems) many times it allows “bad” processes to continue producing mixed results at best. Yes, those responsible for those “system failures” also need to be held responsible.
So that in public education, those administrators are never culpable for their actions as they were only instituting processes/systems/policies/procedures that have been dictated to them from above. They institute those without hardly any critical thinking and gathering of input and decision making from those most effected by those policies/procedures, the teachers and whenever possible, even the students. I’ve had to review those policies and the processes/procedures involved after an administrator had set them up. Needless to say, so much was missing because those administrators had no clue how to gather all the needed information from all those effected/those doing the actual work.
Administrator programs generally do a terrible job of teaching how to do that but then again perhaps that can only be learned “on the job”, which doesn’t work in public education because almost all administrators have never had those experiences outside the education realm. There’s a reason I call those types of administrators “adminimals”. They have no clue that they are lacking most of what it takes to properly administer public education.
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