Past Events
Dr. Jack Grayson and Fred Bentsen, Keynote Speakers – Improving Schools Conference – Louisville, Kentucky
November 10, 2011
APQC Founder Dr. Jack Grayson and APQC Executive Director Fred Bentsen were keynote speakers an Improving Schools Conference hosted by the Kentucky Department of Education in November. The session was titled “Improving Schools and District Productivity”. If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about the topics and tools presented in this lecture feel free to contact Fred Bentsen at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Click here to download Jack's presentation slides.
Click here to download Fred's presentation slides.
Dr. Jack Grayson, Keynote Speaker – Productivity in Education Forum – Columbus, Ohio
October 24, 2011
APQC Founder and CEO Dr. Jack Grayson was a speaker and panel member at a Productivity in Education forum hosted by the Fordham Foundation in October. The session was titled “Working Smarter Together: Enhancing savings and performance for local schools and governments”. If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about the topics and tools presented in this lecture feel free to contact Fred Bentsen, APQC Executive Director, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Click here to download presentation slides.
Global Education Roundtable - PPM in Education
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
At this one day meeting in Washington D.C., leaders from different sectors will gather to discuss global education. The event’s focus is process and performance management as a tool to improve education. Representatives from all levels of the education industry will join leaders in business, healthcare, government and military to address problems and opportunities.
For more information click here.
Calculating Costs for Processes and Projects Webinar
October 4, 2011
This webinar was a great refresher for Project Action Teams or educational leaders who need to understand the importance and the methods for calculating or estimating costs as they are linked to existing processes or for potential improvement opportunities.
Click here to watch recorded webinar presentation
Click here to download presentation slides
Dr. Jack Grayson, Distinguished Lecture - TASA/TASB Convention
October 2, 2011
APQC Founder and CEO Dr. Jack Grayson delivered a distinguished lecture at the recent TASA/TASB Convention in Austin, Texas titled What Lies Beneath: Uncovering Waste in District Operations. If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about the topics and tools presented in this lecture feel free to contact Fred Bentsen, APQC Education Executive Director, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Click here to download presentation slides
Metrics Alignment Webinar
September 27, 2011
Hear about the high level challenges for aligning metrics in an educational organization and learn some basic tips for how to improve your measurement systems. If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about the topics and tools presented in this webinar, feel free to contact the presenter, Greg Gibbs at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Executive Director of Training and Coaching Services, Carolyn Talasek at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Click here to watch recorded webinar presentation
Click here to download presentation slides
Improve Efficiency and Effectiveness in Your School District! Webinar
September 7, 2011
We are delighted to announce a new strategic agreement between TASBO and The American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC). Accordingly, APQC will offer webinars and professional development workshops in conjunction with TASBO, and as this relationship evolves we expect that it will add value for Texas districts. The first of these webinars, can be viewed below.
Process and Performance Management (PPM): What is it and how can it help my district?
- Learn about PPM and how to apply high-level process management to your key district practices
- Guest speaker Frankie Jackson, CTO of Goose Creek CISD and TASBO President
Click here to watch recorded webinar presentation
Click here to download presentation slides
PPM Overview/Strategic Planning Webinar
September 7, 2011
Learn about PPM and how to apply high-level process management to key district practices. Managing an organization with a focus on processes and data requires a process management structure to be designed and implemented for leadership teams to manage and support all cross-functional areas in the organization. This Process Performance Management (PPM) overview demonstrates the what, why, and how of PPM and allows for educational leaders to identify where to start, and how to shift from managing processes into improving and redesigning them, in a unifying and cost effective manner. Discussions will include tips on aligning strategic plans to department and campus plans, determining Key Performance Indicators and how to map the high level processes of your organization.
Click here to watch recorded webinar presentation
Click here to download presentation slides
Best Practices in Evaluating the Impact of Instructional Coaches on Teaching and Learning
September 1, 2011
Learn about the key findings from our most recent benchmarking study, “Best Practices in Evaluating the Impact of Instructional Coaches on Teaching and Learning.” The study, sponsored by the GE Foundation, explores the value proposition of instructional coaching to K-12 districts and campuses. Learn how five best practice districts:
- Measure the tangible impact of instructional coaching
- Gauge the real impact coaches have on teachers
- Provide professional development to successful coaches
- Allocate coaches to various campuses
- Protect the coaching programs during budget cuts
Click here to watch recorded webinar presentation
Click here to download presentation slides
Webinar: Grayson Series – “Finding Funds, Improving Waste, and Improving Productivity”
June 8, 2011
In the third installment of the Grayson Series, Dr. C. Jackson (Jack) Grayson discusses ways to find funds and improve efficiency and effectiveness by improving processes without cutting people. He presents an alternative to traditional cost reductions – a source of funding that is often overlooked: waste. “There is a critical difference between cost-cutting and waste reduction,” says Dr. Grayson, who shares how schools around the nation are saving time, money, and resources using process and performance management, a powerful methodology.
- Get quick tips to get started reducing waste in your district!
- Learn how to uncover hidden opportunities to find funds
- Generate additional resources immediately, with long term benefits
- Reduce waste and see transformative gains
Click here to watch recorded webinar presentation
Click here to download presentation slides
Webinar: Grayson Series – “Waste in Education”
April 13, 2011
In these times of financial scarcity in education – and everywhere else – there's a source of funds you may have overlooked: cutting waste out of your system. If you think of the tip of an iceberg as the value-added work that produces desired results in schools, everywhere below the surface is waste. It's massive. Yet many educators don't know how to find it, measure it, analyze it, or create an action plan to reduce it. There is a solution!
In the second installment of the Grayson Series, Dr. Grayson delineated a proven methodology to cut waste and free up time and dollars that directly impact student success.
Learn how to make transformative improvements without job elimination and blanket cost reductions. Watch the recording and view the slides to find out how to remove activities and expenses that don't add value and uncover hidden funds in your school, district, or state.
Click here to watch recorded webinar presentation
Click here to download presentation slides
What Lies Beneath: Uncovering Waste in District Operations
April 9, 2011
Dr. C. Jackson “Jack" Grayson led a special session at NSBA in San Francisco. The session, “What Lies Beneath: Uncovering Waste in District Operations,” had 225 people in attendance and delineated a roadmap for finding new resources through instituting Process and Performance Management (PPM) in district operations. See his slides and learn more about it.
Click here to view a PDF of the presentation.
Click here to read a news article from NSBA about the presentation.
First Installment: Grayson Series of Conversations
March 10, 2011
In this first installment of the Grayson Series, Dr. Grayson discussed how to measure and enhance productivity in education. What is the "New Normal," and how does it impact your school and your school district? Just how do you implement productivity measurements when you have them? And, when you have unfavorable productivity measurements, how do you improve them? These are all questions that Dr. Grayson addressed in this one hour webinar.
Click here to watch recorded webinar presentation
Click here to download presentation slides
APQC Annual Process & Performance Management Conference and Knowledge Transfer Session
February 22 – 24, 2011
Eleven districts presented on process improvement projects and other PPM related efforts such as The Journey to the Baldrige Award (Montgomery County Public Schools, MD), balanced scorecards, transportation, IT/Technology, increasing PSAT/SAT scores, strategic planning, and more. These projects represent work done by project teams in our North Star Community, and while not every project was represented during the conference, process improvement efforts over the last year have topped several million dollars in savings or cost avoidance. These best practices will be added to our Knowledge Base in order to continue to provide more insights into process improvement opportunities. For information about access to the Knowledge Base, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Our keynote address was given by Dr. David Anthony, Superintendent, Cypress-Fairbanks, ISD, Texas. Conference participants included people from around the country – from as far away as Juneau, AK and around the world – we had visitors from West Melbourne, Australia! Larry Bowers, COO of Montgomery County Public Schools, spoke live to an amphitheatre full of conference attendees – from his office in Maryland! We hope to host more remote speakers in the future, as enabled by our TelePresence system.
Click here to learn about Aldine ISD, Texas – Transportation Process Improvement.
Click here to view a short video animation of conference.
Process! Process! Process! Improvement from the Inside Out
Texas Association of School Administrators Midwinter Conference
February 01, 2011
School systems in Texas have embarked on an exciting quality journey with the support of APQC. These districts are improving the system from the inside out by identifying, implementing, and measuring key processes to produce sustainable continuous improvement in every facet of the organization. As we face myriad challenges in our educational environment, we need to strategically think, plan, and implement processes to improve student achievement, productivity, communication, and effectiveness.
Click here to download presentation slides
Webinar: A Year in Review of Benchmarking – 2010
January 25, 2011
This was an 45 minute webinar recapping the results, best practices, key metrics, and lessons learned from our 3 completed 2010 Benchmarking studies: Response To Intervention, Data Driven Decision Making in th