15th NQEC Asks Big Questions, Touts Team Leaders
The 670 attendees at the 15th National Quality Education Conference, hosted by the ASQ St. Louis Section, enjoyed a varied programming, energetic keynote addresses, and even a special commemorative shirt designed by renowned artist and folklorist Brian “The Bydee Man” Joseph. These and other conference components contributed to an individual’s satisfaction of the conference. Attendees can continue the experience through the NQEC community http://www.asq.org/communities/nqec/index.html. But there was a level beyond the individual that NQEC tapped into this year with two events. First was the Executive Roundtable held on Sunday, November 11. More than 25 executives representing business, government, and education gathered to discuss the future of education.
With a diverse group came many different perspectives. However, a message became very clear—quality has an important role in education and everyone, regardless of position, rank, and sector, has a role and responsibility to get involved in students’ education. Kathlyn Fares, Missouri House of Representatives and chair of the state’s Education Appropriations committee, encouraged everyone to get to know their state representatives and senators so they know the expertise their constituents have to create positive changes in communities.
The coming months will find plenty of information generated based on the Roundtable outcomes. An article will be published and a video of the event will be made available on the ASQ Web site.
For the first time a team excellence competition was held. Four teams entered the competition to vie for the gold, silver, and bronze awards. Two university departments, both using Six Sigma methodology, and one high school took top honors. Below is a description of each of the teams’ projects.
2007 NQEC Team Excellence Award Results
GOLD WINNER
Institution: Central Michigan University, Dept. of Mathematics
Team Name: CMU Math Placement
Team Type: Six Sigma
The project was developed to improve the mathematics placement process for freshmen. The DMAIC strategies were applied. The percentage of taking higher level courses than the recommended was reduced from 13.1% to 8.1% and from 33.3% to 28.4% for failure rate. Potential savings were estimated at minimum $620,000 per year.
SILVER WINNER
Institution: Rockwood School District, Lafayette High School
Team Name: Team Lafayette
Team Type: Improvement Team
LHS designed interventions to positively affect students ACT scores. This test is a crucial criteria in college admission selection and scholarship consideration. After careful analysis of data the Lafayette team determined the administrative, faculty, parent, and student interventions most likely to attain the goal. From 1998 to 2006, the average ACT score increased from 23.1 to 24.9, the number of Advanced Placement tests being administered increased from 508 to 982, and the number of Bright Flight Scholars increased from 30 to 92. The scholarship amount received by our students increased from $300,000 to $920,000.
BRONZE WINNER
Institution: Clayton State University, Continuing Education Department
Team Name: CE, Lean Sigma Deployment Team
Team Type: Lean Sigma Deployment Team
The pilot program was conceived to improve continuing education (CE) student test scores, increase CE student enrollment, and provide employers a high ROI. We used numerous tools from both the Lean and Six Sigma methodologies. The annualized projected savings for 22 green belt students was $1.3M, over $50K per student.
Much more occurred during NQEC. ASQ launched a new module of training for K-12 educators called ImpaQT. A demo was held for ASQ Educational Institution members. Ann Raines, master trainer, provided the overview on the classroom, school, and district modules and then we engaged in a Q&A. in addition to the demo, there was a workshop and a breakout session on the vision, mission, and goals section of the training. ImpaQT is available in three modules: classroom, school, and district. The classroom piece is available now. The School piece will be available in January and the district piece will debut in March.
