Most of our readers may never have heard of the Baldrige model, but those who teach in the Iredell-Statesville school system are well aware of the program.

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program was established by Congress and is administered by a branch of the Department of Commerce. It receives about $5 million in annual funding from the federal government, and about $100 million from the private sector and state organizations.

The program stresses “Total Quality Management”, and presents awards to private businesses and health and educational entities.

Iredell-Statesville Schools Superintendent Terry Holliday is a Senior National Examiner for the Baldrige program. ISS employee Susan Allred is also a National Examiner. Holliday and Allred are the only two North Carolina Examiners who represent a public school system.

Holliday has aggressively implemented the Baldrige program. In a recent letter to teachers and teacher assistants, he stated his administration had four “non-negotiables”, one of which was: “ISS will utilize the Baldrige model…”

“I firmly believe the vast majority of our teachers and teacher assistants understand the reasons behind the Baldrige model…”, Holliday asserted. But a “small group” do not. These dissenters, he charged, “choose to behave in extremely unprofessional ways.”

The program itself may be innocuous, but critics complain that teachers are required to spend too much of their time attending Baldrige meetings. Some charge that large sums of tax money have been spent on implementing the Baldrige program and on travel to various events.

Some county commissioners have privately questioned the spending on the Baldrige program, but as of the date this is written none have done so publicly.

This is yet another story that has not been reported by the mainstream press.