The Student Supply Chain and Using PDSA for Improvement Deming in Schools Case Study with John Dues (Part 12)

In this series, John Dues and host Andrew Stotz discuss principles that educational systems leaders can use to guide their transformation work. This episode covers principles 4 and 5: maximize high-quality learning and work continually on the system.

TRANSCRIPT

0:00:02.5 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. Today is episode 12, and we're continuing our discussion about the shift from management myths to principles for the transformation of schools' systems. John, take it away.

0:00:34.4 John Dues: Andrew, it's good to be back. Yeah, like you said, we've sort of turned to this set of principles that can be used by educational systems leaders to guide their transformation work. Two episodes ago, we sort of kicked off the principles, gave a little bit of an introduction. We talked about principle one, which is create constancy of purpose. And then the last time we talked, we kind of broke down two principles. Principle two was adopt the new philosophy, and principle three was, cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. So in this episode, I was gonna sort of take on the next two, the fourth and fifth principles. So the fourth principle is, maximize high quality learning. And the fifth principle is, work continually on the system.

0:01:28.6 JD: So I thought we'd sort of kick things off with principle four, that idea around maximize high quality learning. And I think sort of... If I was gonna capture that principle in just a couple sentences, I would say, you wanna maximize high quality learning and minimize total cost of education by improving the relationship with educational institutions from which students come and to which they matriculate. So, we're thinking about a single source of students coming into a system, such as an elementary school student moving into a middle school, and seeing that as an opportunity to build a long term relationship of loyalty and trust. So that's sort of the overarching idea. And I think if you sort of look at this principle through the lens of United Schools Network, where I work in Columbus, Ohio, I think that's sort of a helpful lens. And when you think about our origin story, we started as a single middle school serving a few east side neighborhoods, near downtown Columbus. And I was the founding principal, school director of that particular campus.

0:02:55.3 JD: And at the time, we decided we were gonna open a middle school, 'cause this is the point often in a student's educational career where they fall so far behind, they often then drop out of school altogether just a few years later. So we wanted to get them in middle school. So, before we were this sort of network of schools in the school system, we were this one school that grew from serving just sixth grade over the first few years to sixth through eighth grade, right. And when you looked at these east side neighborhoods where we were located, there were 15 or so elementary schools from the city school system that formed this sort of de facto feeder pattern into our middle school. Most of those schools were performing in the bottom 5% of schools in the state. Which means when those students then matriculated to our middle school, they typically did so in... The typical kid was at least two, but more often three and even four grade levels below where they should be when they enrolled with us in 6th grade.

0:04:18.1 JD: And, while I didn't have this Deming lens at the time, I did sort of approach things from a process standpoint, from a system standpoint. But, as the middle school principal, I'm thinking about sort of all that entails to run a school and a new school at that, so we're doing all the things that come with a startup. There was no way for me to run around and form relationships with the 15 principals leading those elementary schools from which our students were primarily coming from.

0:04:54.0 JD: And so when we had this opportunity to grow from one school into a network that's now four schools, we elected to grow down into elementary schools. The point in doing so was to move towards this sort of single supplier relationship, that Dr. Deming outlined in his point four. And so now, we have two middle school principals, two elementary schools in our network, and they can work together on a whole host of sort of quality characteristics, like vertically planning curriculum across that K to eight pipeline. And, we were middle schools first and then elementary schools, so while we're getting some of our students from our own elementary schools we're also still getting students from other non-USN schools, non-USN elementary schools, but we're sort of increasingly moving toward that single supplier model. And I think that coordination is one of the ways that we can then maximize high quality learning, and the great thing about this is that we then minimize the total cost of education.

0:06:14.6 JD: And I think this is one of the important paradoxes of Dr. Deming's work, in that, as quality goes up, price goes down. Which that's sort of the opposite of what a lot of people think. In the case of schools, what we're talking about in terms of minimizing cost, a lot of that has to do with less remediation of students as they sort of increasingly come from those USN elementary schools and they're not as typically far behind when they arrive to our middle schools as they were previously.

0:06:54.1 AS: And for our international listeners, and also just for a refresher for myself. Is middle school what we... I used to call it junior high, I think I called it. But what is middle school and elementary as far as your grades and ages?

0:07:09.7 JD: Yeah, that's a good question. Middle school is six through eight for us. So sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. And then our elementary schools are kindergarten through fifth grade.

0:07:19.4 AS: Got it.

0:07:23.1 JD: There's also this sort of... I think when Deming wrote his point four, his version said, "End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost, move toward a single supplier for any one item on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust." So I sort of translated Deming's framing to one that applies directly to students as they move through that K-12 pipeline. However, there's also this second component to this principle that's more sort of directly analogous to Deming's point, and it's definitely applicable to the business side of running schools. And this is the idea of ceasing dependence on price tag alone when we're selecting curriculum or technology or supplies or any number of goods and services that school systems regularly buy. I think the main ideas here, is to understand that difference between the lowest bidder and the lowest qualified bidder. And I think one of the things that Deming pointed out on this side of things was that basically price has no meaning without a measure of quality being purchased, including that after sale service. So I think that's a key point as well.

0:08:44.7 AS: When did you guys open the elementary schools?

0:08:48.6 JD: Yeah, so it sort of unfolded over time. So the first middle school opened in 2008.

0:08:55.2 AS: Right.

0:08:55.3 JD: Second middle school 2012. And then we moved toward elementaries in 2014 and 2017. But a key thing here is, when we open new schools, we sort of have a slow growth model where we typically open with just a single grade level. So they can sort of put systems and processes in place, hire staff, recruit students, that type of thing. And so it took about five years before those elementary schools were mature enough that they were actually feeding to the middle schools.

0:09:32.1 AS: So let's say 2020, 2019-'20 and then onwards, you're starting to get the students from the elementary schools, was there a significant difference? How would you describe the difference in what you received, from your elementary school versus... In other words, did it deliver on what you had hoped?

0:09:56.8 JD: Yeah, I think we have work to do there. But for the typical student that's coming from our elementary schools, one, they're very familiar with our routines, our procedures, our sort of school culture, the way that the school's run. A lot of those students often have older siblings that are either in our middle school or had been in our middle school and are now alumni. And then academically we see a difference as well, especially for those students that started early in elementary, like in K-1, 'cause we take kids at all grade levels. But for those kids that started K-1 and went all the way through our system and are enrolling now six years later or seven years later in sixth grade with us, the difference is stark. Both from a sort of student traits and responsibilities and sort of student academic side of things.

0:10:52.0 AS: And how does that changing... Ultimately what I think about... Toyota is a good example. And in Thailand here, Toyota has a huge manufacturing base. And part of what's so critical to that manufacturing base is all the supplier relationships that come with that. So they're surrounded by their suppliers and they've built great relationships with those suppliers. In a sense, you just happen to own that supplier in this case, but whether you're owning the supplier or whether a listener or a viewer is saying, "Okay, I need to build a better relationship with the suppliers that I have." The question I have in your case is, how did that change the final result at the end of middle school? 'Cause ultimately what you're trying to do is get your final output of your sy