Conventional methods For comparing the relative productivity of schools employ least squares regression to find expected achievement of schools with the same input characteristics. The result is that one typically contrasts the relative effects of "predictor" variables on achievement rather than comparing school unitswith respect to their input/output efficiency. A newly developed input/output method for comparing the efficiency of decision making units is presented and is applied to elementary schools in an urban school district. The method is found to identify efficient and inefficient schools and provides "management information relative to input and output measures.
A school may be viewed as an enterprise in which the professional staff provide the operating conditions for converting quantifiable resources or inputs into pupil learning (outputs). The resources are determined by budgets, teacher assignments, and student assignments while learning is determined by various outputs scored according to standardized tests such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Following the work of Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (Charnes, A., W. W. Cooper, E. Rhodes. 1981. Evaluating program and managerial efficiency: an application of data envelopment analysis to program follow through. Management Sci. 27 (6) 668--697.), we use a ratio definition of efficiency that takes account of all outputs and inputs without requiring a priori specification of weights. Instead a series of mathematical programs are applied to determine "virtual multipliers" from actual data. The multipliers produce values that can be regarded as the "most favorable weights" for each school being evaluated. If the resulting optimum virtual multipliers for a given school yield an efficiency ratio of one, then that school is said to be efficient. If the ratio is less than one then that school is said to be inefficient relative to the other schools in the analysis. The ratio is also accorded operational significance---it is not merely an index number---so that the resulting values and the associated virtual multipliers make it possible to locate where improvements may be made along with their relative magnitudes. This analysis was applied to 167 elementary schools in the Houston Independent School District. Of these schools, 78 were found to be inefficiently utilizing their resources as compared to the 89 efficient schools. Based on this pilot study, an Educational Productivity Council has been formed at the University of Texas at Austin to provide an annual analysis for all of its member schools. At present 285 Texas schools in 22 districts are scheduled for participation in the annual analysis as described in this investigation.mathematical programming: applications, education systems: planning, data envelopment analysis
A new application of DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) is examined for evaluating the efficiency of occupational-technicalprograms in a comprehensive community college. This includes extensions of DEA for use in evaluating new programs that might be introduced along with possible combinations of old programs. Emphasis is placed on the relative efficiency aspects of DEA so that consequences for the efficiency ofprograms other than those being considered can be taken into account. Uses by the director of San Antonio College are described and placed in a context of the other elements that entered into her decisions. In conclusion, possible further improvements in DEA are discussed along with the kinds of research needed to achieve them.
Assessing the efficiency of organizational units has long been recognized as an important management problem but an extremely difficult one to solve, especially when one considers the multiplicity of resources and services or products associated with these units operating in a variety of industries. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a promising approach for addressing this problem, is extended in this paper. The proposed extension, called Constrained Facet Analysis (CFA), provides a lower bound efficiency measure for organizational units that have a mix of resources and/or outputs that is different from any frontier point. In addition, CFA yields marginal rates of productivity and substitution associated with the lower bound efficiency measure. This lower bound analysis, combined with the upper bound efficiency analysis provided by the DEA, broadens the applicability of the DEA theory and methodology.
Most of the applications of Management Science reported in the literature have been macroanalytic studies requiring massive expenditures of time and money, rather than useful applications for small systems involving little effort and cost. One such application was made at the University departmental level in which a Markov analysis was employed to study the progression of doctoral students to completion (with periods of nonenrollment accounted for) to determine if the number of current admissions was creating an undesirable future dissertation overload for supervising professors. The department unanimously approved the recommendation based on the study. Problems of implementation were avoided by having a department member (1) participating in the model development and data gathering and (2) presenting the results of the analysis to department members.
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