The Case for Effectively Using Existing Business Improvement Models in Australian Schools

There is a significant lack of documented research on Australian school improvement that is contextualized within business improvement model settings. This is the case even though Australian schools have been operating within a business environment for a while now. This chapter aims at addressing this gap by discussing what educational quality is within schools. It will present an adapted version for continuous school improvement within school systems in Australia. This adapted version of continuous school improvement provides a theoretical framework on how schools operating as self-managed business systems can ensure that the delivery of educational quality is strategically sustained at the organizational level and that focus remains on the important core business of student learning. This adapted version has been described as strategic TQM and a case is made for its use in Australian schools through five transformations that are brought about through the SCOPE cycle for school improvement.