The Benchmarking Process: Finding “World Class”
Comparisons
Dr. Terry Holliday, Superintendent Iredell Statesville Schools, North Carolina
During recent weeks, I am certain many of you spent a great deal of time watching the Olympics. With the staggering of the Winter and Summer games, we are treated to this event every two years. The commercials during the games are often made especially for the Olympics. One commercial depicted a skater in a European country who was training. When he had beaten an established time, he sent a digital message to his competitor in America. Later in the commercial, the American sends a digital message back that says “Beat this” and the time was displayed. What this commercial depicted is the concept of benchmark. The Olympics and World Games establish benchmarks for every sport. The benchmarks are world class standards that all of the athletes train for and attempt to surpass. However, not all athletes set world records. In interview after interview, the journey of training with fellow athletes and competing against the best in the world was the reward. Certainly, if a medal or record time follows, then the personal victory was apparent.
In recent newspaper articles and publications of the Transylvania County School system, readers have seen much discussion about benchmarks. The school system has adopted the national Baldrige criteria for continuous improvement and one of the fundamental tenets of this management philosophy is comparing the school system to benchmarks. Recently, I was asked a question - Who picks the benchmarks? Actually, benchmarks are not picked. The results pick the benchmarks. As was the case with the Olympic games, the benchmark is that athlete who has the best results. When school systems use benchmarks, they use several levels of benchmarks. In Transylvania County, we look at school systems with similar size and demographics. Also, we look at Western Region and North Carolina averages. As is the case with most indicators of performance, Transylvania County has exceeded all of these benchmarks. To continue to improve, we then must turn to the system with the best performance in the state and to the highest performing systems across the nation.
The logical next step is to define the term “best.” With regard to state testing, the system with the highest percentage of students scoring on grade level would be the benchmark. That system in 2000-2001 was Chapel Hill and Transylvania was 2nd. When looking at indicators such as dropout rates, the system with the lowest percentage of dropouts would be the benchmark. Transylvania County did not do as well with this indicator, thus dropout prevention became a major goal of the school system. Another major area is that of school finance. A recent article I wrote gave comparisons of school finance in North Carolina. A benchmark would not be the system who spends the most. A benchmark would be the system who produces the best results for the lowest cost. Educators often do not think this way, however, efficiency and effectiveness must go together. It is the responsibility of school systems to find the point where maximum results are produced and balance costs. As a school system, we are currently analyzing data from state sources to determine a benchmark in this category. We suspect that Transylvania County will be among the best in the state with this regard.
Finally, once benchmarks are established, the benchmarking process begins. That process includes sharing information with other systems and learning about improvement areas. Then we set goals, measure our progress, and improve processes where possible. School systems are very unlike business in this regard. Most businesses do not share information with competitors. However, school systems do this all the time. Transylvania County is one of the most visited systems in the state of North Carolina. Why do we do this? Our improvement target is not a profit margin. Our improvement target is children. We want to help all of the children in North Carolina.