CB>  MS>     The competency test adds quality to the process in two ways:
CB>  MS>         1) If too many kids fail it, their will be political 
CB> pressure
CB>  MS>             from parents to improve the process.  (Failure rates 
CB> are
CB>  MS>             published.)
CB>  MS>         2) Kids wanting to get into college, or even get all but 
CB> the 
CB>  MS>             worst jobs, get motivation to cooperate with the 
CB> process.
CB> 
CB> All this is is Management by Results, a very old factory system.
CB> Motorola has not done this for 10 years, yet they achieve a very high 
CB> quality product. (I think the quality of the final product is at 
CB> 99.99969% 
    Motorola is manufacturing products with very little human input in 
heavily _automated_ factories.  That is a very different environment from a 
K-12 public school where little "automation" is even possible, let alone 
one.
    The only reason that Motorola's system works for Motorola is that so 
little is _not_ done automatically by a machine.  Bad or indifferent workers 
do not make much difference in their final product.  Are you familiar with 
how a circuit board is now soldered all at once by machine, rather than 
component-by-component by workers?  Motorola plants have little opportunity 
for error.
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