Determining the Comparative Efficiency of Schools through Data Envelopment Analysis

Abstract

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.

The efficiency of public and publicly subsidized high schools in Spain: Evidence from PISA-2006

“…The prescriptions generally accepted in the DEA literature concerning variable selection establish that this must observe certain minimum requirements, as established by Bessent & Bessent (1980): a conceptual basis for the relationship of inputs to outputs; an empirically inferred relationship of measured inputs to outputs; increases in inputs must be associated with increases in outputs; and the measurements must not have zero elements.…”

Measuring educational efficiency at student level with parametric stochastic distance functions: an application to Spanish PISA results

“…Pioneer studies applying data envelopment analysis in education originate with Bessent and Bessent (1980), Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (1981) and Bessent et al (1982) (for an empirical survey of frontier efficiency techniques in education, see Worthington 2001). Other studies have considered parametric methodologies, mainly using the Cobb-Douglas specifications, but also the translog functional form proposed by Christensen, Jorgenson, and Lau (1971).…”

A robust DEA model for measuring the relative efficiency of Iranian high schools

“…However, the majority of cases do not consider uncertainty on input/output data. For example, Levin (1974), Bessent and Bessent (1980), Bessent et al (1982), Ludwin and Guthrie, (1989), and Färe et al, (1989) used this method to measure the efficiency of U.S. schools, and Jesson et al, (1987) applied DEA method to study the efficiency of school districts (LEAs) in the UK. Bonesrqnning and Rattsq, (1994) conducted a study of efficiency analysis of Norwegian high schools.…”