pose toward improvement of product and service." In the paragraph of discussion given to this first principle, Rebore generally notes that administrators need a plan that facilitates the implementation of the overall vision for the school; this because it is this overall vision from which consistency and unity of purpose is derived. He further notes that while the superintendent and his cabinet/staff are usually the developers of this strategic plan:
Personnel administrators, of course, should have the major responsibility for developing that part of the strategic plan that deals with personnel management. (p. 21)
The problem here is that these few comments hardly explicate the principle in a way that is useful to the reader. Conspicuously absent in the discussion are any concrete steps which personnel administrators can take to discharge their responsibility of developing that part of the plan that deals with personnel management.
The cited principle would be far easier to understand and, certainly, to implement if Rebore had included a few examples of real-life administrators' plans in this area. This lack of a few concrete suggestions for implementation holds for all listed principles.
Also missing from the general delineation and discussion of TQM principles is the citation of research supporting this management approach. The reader is told that it has been successfully used in both Japanese and American companies. There should have been a few empirical studies cited to confirm this claim.
Moreover, it needs to be remembered that the TQM approach was developed for businesses not educational institutions. While it is true that in a sense, education is a business, it is also true that educational establishments have some unique characteristics that are not present in most businesses or industries.
Research indicating the successful use of TQM in at least one school or school district should have been...