Quality-Management Movement Spurs Interest in New Awards for Education

By Lynn Olson

In an effort to enhance their economic competitiveness, a growing number of states are creating awards that encourage schools, government agencies, and industries to pursue quality-management techniques.

Total Quality Management is the name given to an approach for running large, complex organizations that has swept through U.S. corporations in the past decade. (See Education Week, March 11, 1992.)

It combines a strong focus on customer satisfaction with a set of statistical tools and decisionmaking techniques that enable workers to constantly improve the processes in...