Published: April 9, 2008

Lean Education

As in most households where teachers reside, there are many conversations about education policy in our home. My husband and I also discuss the Dilbertesque policies implemented at the major manufacturing firm where he works. Not surprisingly, it’s fairly easy to find some common threads.

Not long ago we began to flesh out an analogy between public school education and “lean manufacturing,” a concept now being pursued by many industries. In general terms, lean manufacturing concentrates on reducing costs by standardizing processes and raw materials. This minimizes waste, including wasted time. Any variation in raw materials or processing requires adjustments to achieve the same output at a consistent cost.

If we look at raw materials as student background, process as teaching methods, and output as graduates, the analogy would be that every variation in student background or teaching methodology requires adjustments in cost in order...