W. Edwards Deming has suggested 96% of organization performance is a function of the organization's structure. He contends only about 4% of an organization's performance is attributable to the people. This is a fundamental difference as most school leaders work with the basic assumption that 80% of a school's performance is related to staff and their weaknesses and that these are the primary drivers of a school's performance. Thus, almost all school artifacts are driven by the assumption it's the teachers' fault. By utilizing a review of the history of organizations, this article purposes to challenge the status quo of thinking on the topic of school improvement. The author emphasizes and correlates important subtopics as Organizations as Machines and how humans do not fit into that mold so readily; the emergence of system thinking; and the move from managing an organization as if it were a machine (mechanical system) to the onset of facilitating the organization as a system (social system). Purposefully, this article confronts the following points with great interest and persuasion. Humans are tool users. American schools all use performance tools. Our schools must rethink their choices of performance tools. In a final analysis, these questions are provided to encourage our present thinking about the education of our children: Are there more effective tools than the ones we currently employ? Is this the best our schools can do? What can we learn from organizational development that will allow us to improve our schools?