Archived: The Policy Forum, Vol. 2, No. 1: .What Is Benchmarking?

A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

The Policy Forum, Vol. 2, No. 1 - Spring 1999

What Is Benchmarking?

While benchmarking is unfamiliar to most educators, it has been successfully used in business to foster continuous improvement and achieve excellence. Benchmarking can help organizations—including schools, districts, and state agencies—become high performance learning communities.

Benchmarking is an activity where organizations continuously engage in self--study and compare themselves with the leaders in their field so they can identify, adapt, and apply significantly better practices.

It is a systematic, evidence-based, and participatory change process. Benchmarking may be done at the strategic level where the goal is to create a shared vision and identify key levers for organizational change. If the strategic thinking has already been done, then benchmarking can take place at the level of specific practices or processes (e.g., improve curriculum or professional development).

The benchmarking process includes the following steps:

Self-assessment. Document and study your own organization's vision, practices, and success measures. Decide what to benchmark.
Comparison. Decide who to benchmark. Identify exemplars and establish a benchmarking partnership. Study and assess your partner(s). For example, in the areas of mathematics and science education, you can use local exemplars as well as TIMSS data for comparison purposes.
Analysis and Adaptation. Ask why you are getting your results and why others are getting better results. While benchmarking is often called "borrowing shamelessly," practices generally require creative adaptation in a new context.
Implementation. Think carefully about what enablers (e.g., resources, schedule changes) are needed. Communicate findings and build support for the changes you want to make.
Feedback. Carefully monitor and measure the results of your innovation and recalibrate if necessary.

Benchmarking Resources

Read more about the benchmarking process. These references were used as sources for this article.

Tucker, Sue. 1996.: Benchmarking: A Guide for Educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. A brief introduction adapted for educators in a clear "how to" format.
Resnick, Lauren B. and Nolan, Katherine J. 1995.: "Benchmarking Education Standards." Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 17(4), 438?61. An example of an international benchmarking study in education.
Bogan, Christopher E. and English, Michael J. 1994.: Benchmarking for Best Practices: Winning through Innovative Adaptation. New York: McGraw Hill. An in-depth treatment written for the business context.
Watson, Gregory H. 1993.: Strategic Benchmarking: How to Rate Your Company's Performance Against the World's Best. New York: John Wiley and Sons. A classic in the field.

Use existing data for international benchmarks in math and science education.

Government Printing Office, 1997.: Attaining Excellence: A TIMSS Resource Kit. Designed to help educators use TIMSS, the kit contains multimedia materials including reports, videotapes, and discussion overheads. It includes four modules: overview, achievement, curriculum, and teaching. Call GPO at (202) 512?1800 to purchase the whole kit in a carry-case box for $94. (Modules also available separately.) The kit can also be downloaded free from the Internet (see p. 4).
Stigler, James W. and Stevenson, Harold W. Spring 1991.: "How Asian Teachers Polish Each Lesson to Perfection," American Educator, 12?20, 43?47. This article compares key features of elementary school mathematics lessons in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. With a related 34-minute videotape depicting classroom scenes, these materials may be used to introduce international benchmarking to a variety of audiences, especially elementary mathematics teachers. The videotape may be ordered by sending a check for $35 to the University of Michigan, c/o Mrs. S. Liang, 30 N. Ingalls, 10th Floor, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

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[A Wake-Up Call for U.S. Educators: The Third International Mathematics and Science Study] [TIMSS: A "Power Tool" for School Reform]