This paper provides information about the development of a successful quality-assurance process in the New South Wales, Australia, school system. In 1992 the New South Wales (NSW) government announced its commitment to a program of quality-assurance reviews of schools. During that year, approximately 100 meetings were held with principals, school…

The mission of this book is to facilitate effective instructor-student partnerships through the study of total quality management (TQM) principles and to demonstrate to instructors how they can make a difference in their classrooms, institutions, and communities. It uses an educational approach that actively involves students in the learning…

A study of a continuous quality improvement effort at Auburn University (Alabama) is reported. The study investigated variables predicting which students are at risk of failure. Data were drawn from the records of pre-engineering students enrolling at the university in fall terms of 1991 and 1993-95 (n=2,505). Data sources included achievement…

This book, based on the experiences of institutions of higher education, lists print, nonprint, and organizational resources to assist colleges and universities involved in Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) efforts. The book has 12 sections which provide: (1) an annotated list of campus documents from nearly 100 college campuses putting CQI…

This article explores the following questions: first, "Do colleges of higher vocational education vary in the mean success of their graduates on the labor market?" and, second, "Are the differences between these colleges stable over time?". The analysis drew upon school effectiveness, quality assurance and labor market…

Employees with mental retardation can lose their jobs because their productivity is low due to an inability to perform their jobs quickly and with a minimum of extraneous movements. This guide presents procedures, borrowed from the business world, that can be used to assist people with mental retardation to improve their work quality and…

This book is addressed to educators and work-place trainers interested in applying the Malcolm Baldrige award criteria and/or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9000 training guidelines for program improvement. An initial section compares and contrasts the ISO standards and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award…

This volume contains 17 articles on the emergence and potential of "Quality Improvement" (QI) efforts in higher education. Quality Improvement is defined as continuous improvement of processes in a cycle of plan (administration of instructional processes), do/check (assess), act (on the assessment and then continue to), plan-do-check-act. The…

This paper describes major characteristics of Australia and its education system, including changes in the structure of higher education as former Colleges of Advanced Education, where most teacher education in Australia had been conducted, amalgamated with existing universities or became new universities. Preservice teacher education models are…

This book traces the restructuring of a Texas school district that moved from management by coercion to continuous improvement for quality. In 1990, the Dickinson Independent School District (Texas) began implementation of Continuous Improvement Management (CIM), based on the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, William Glasser, and J. M. Juran.…

Twenty-three transition programs for high school students with disabilities in Minnesota are profiled. These programs were selected because they applied a set of 10 quality standards developed to improve the transition process and adult outcomes for students, as well as to increase the cost effectiveness and efficiency of transition services and…

State programs offer greatest promise for practical strategic actions to enhance the quality of the nation's adult work force. Three steps in the recursive process that create a model of state action are as follows: (1) documentation of the platform for action, which consists of current adult work force attributes and current institutional…

The Workforce Virginia 2000 Advocacy Council committee recommends that for Virginia to respond effectively to the growing global challenge, it must take positive action aimed at improving the productivity and skills of its work force and establishing high performance work organizations. Virginia must shift to a high performance work organization…

The 38 conference papers in this volume were chosen to exemplify different definitions of, and approaches to, quality, as they are applied in a wide range of educational and training contexts. The papers are: "Designing Organisations That Learn" (D. J. Dicks); "Quality Assurance in a European Context" (D. Alexander, J. Morgan);…

In 1991, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation announced its commitment to work with higher education to accelerate the teaching, research, and use of quality management practices in college and university operations. Besides cash and equipment awards being offered, IBM proposed partnerships with IBM facilities to include loaned…