Note: The aim of this nine-part series is to define and describe the basic structure and components of a system. This is the seventh post in the series, which is excerpted from Chapter 4 of my recently published book, Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools.

United Schools, where I work, is a system made up of four public charter schools and a nonprofit hub that serves as the central office for the schools. It is also a subsystem of the system of education in Columbus, in Ohio, and in the United States. This illustrates the point that a system contains subsystems and is itself a subsystem of a system in which it is contained.

As I discussed in last month’s post, when we draw the boundaries of a system to tackle a problem, it is critically important to operationally define that system prior to beginning the improvement work. Equally important is recognizing that no matter where those boundaries are drawn, there is always a larger system beyond that is impacting the one that is within those boundaries. A useful way for thinking about this hierarchy of embedded systems is to look at it as three levels including the core system, the subsystem, and the supra system, each of which is described in Table 1.

Table 1. Hierarchy of Embedded Systems

However, there is often the lack of acknowledgement of the supra system because it is “out there” and not within our immediate sight. An example from my own work at United and its four schools may help illustrate this point. Before diving into the anecdote, a quick overview of our organizational context will be helpful. Table 2 gives a timeline and orientation to our growth into an educational system.

Table 2. United Schools’ Organizational History

United Schools started as a single middle school in 2008 and has since grown to include two middle schools, two elementary schools, and a home office. The basic design of the network is that one elementary and one middle school serve the eastside of Columbus and one elementary and one middle school serve the westside of Columbus. Of note is that the newest elementary school, United Preparatory Academy-East is still in its start-up years and didn't serve its full K-5 grade level capacity until the 2022-2023 school year. It launched in 2017 with kindergarten and first grade and added one grade level per year until adding 5th grade in that 2022-23 school year. 

This means that United Preparatory Academy-East didn’t feed into the middle school on the east side, Columbus Collegiate Academy (CCA), until the fall of 2023. For the first 15 years of Columbus Collegiate Academy’s operations, it did not have its own feeder elementary school. The elementary schools that feed into it are a part of Columbus City Schools (CCS), and those fifteen or so schools have been among the lowest-performing in Ohio over the last decade and a half. There is an additional complication because these “supplier” schools are from outside of the United system in terms of organizational governance. In other words, those elementary schools are governed by Columbus City Schools’ board of education while CCA has its own board. Both the CCS elementary “feeder” schools and Columbus Collegiate Academy are a part of the supra system of education within the city of Columbus. Imagine the possibilities if the United system of schools and the Columbus City Schools system worked together to benefit the students on the east side of Columbus in the same way that Japanese industry thought of itself as a system working toward a common aim when working with Dr. Deming. Unfortunately, attempts at this type of collaboration have never materialized because of the artificial boundaries erected between public charter and traditional public school systems in the city. This hierarchy of embedded systems is illustrated in Table 3.

Table 3. United Schools as the Core System

As you begin to view the world through a systems lens, the idea of improving the core system of which you are a part becomes more challenging. However, seeing the world in this way also opens a number of possibilities for improvement for which you may have been previously unaware. At the very least, this helps in understanding the various system levels in which your organization is situated. If I created another table, but this time with the system of education in Columbus as the core system, I could then make the city and its neighborhoods as the supra system. In doing so, you’d recognize quickly why those fifteen Columbus City elementary schools that form the de facto feeder system to Columbus Collegiate Academy are struggling so mightily. The neighborhoods in which those schools sit are faced with numerous challenges including high poverty rates, violence, and housing instability, among others. 

When well-intentioned educational leaders, policy makers, legislators, and reformers take up school improvement efforts they often fail to do so with a systems lens. Accountability systems, school report cards, and any number of other legislative prescriptions crafted with school improvement in mind underappreciate the systems view. We all would do well to heed the words of noted systems theorist Donella Meadows as we undertake these improvement efforts:

The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social-psychological- economic system. We treat it as if it were divisible, separable, and infinite. [1]

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John A. Dues is the Chief Learning Officer for United Schools Network, a nonprofit charter management organization that supports four public charter schools in Columbus, Ohio. He is also the author of the newly released book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools. Send feedback to jdues@unitedschoolsnetwork.org.

Notes
Donella H. Meadows, “Whole Earth Models & Systems,” CoEvolution Quarterly, Summer 1982.