Measuring and explaining organizational effectiveness of school districts: Evidence from a robust and conditional Benefit-of-the-Doubt approach

Abstract

We are grateful to seminar participants in Rome and Leuven, and participants of the XXV Meeting of the Economics of Education Association, the 4th Workshop on efficiency in education, the 6th Workshop on efficiency and productivity analysis. In particular,

Estimating scale economies and the optimal size of school districts: A flexible form approach

“…After controlling for student and school characteristics, this result remains statistically significant. Studies linking teacher absenteeism to school district management could serve as a possible explanation for this higher per student cost (Theobald, ; Hartog & Verburg, ; De Witte & Schiltz, ). Again, sound management performance could explain discrepancies in school district performance with respect to costs, and possibly also with respect to student outcomes, through its impact on human resource management (teacher hiring and retention).…”

“…We include variables measuring the percentage of teachers younger than 35 years old, the percentage of teachers holding a master's degree and the percentage of teachers being absent during a given year. Teacher absenteeism can serve as a proxy for school district management (De Witte & Schiltz, 2017), which in turn affects student outcomes (Bidwell & Kasarda, 1975). 12 By including this variable, we are able to account for quality differences between districts and hence avoid the endogeneity issues mentioned by Driscoll et al (2003).…”

“…The percentage of teachers holding a master's degree is Estimating scale economies 1055 generally low within districts, since only teachers instructing in the final grade (17-to 18-year-old students) are required to hold this type of degree. Finally, teacher absenteeism also varies widely across districts, indicating broad quality differences (Bidwell & Kasarda, 1975;Ehrenberg et al, 1991;De Witte & Schiltz, 2017). The average equals 12.5% and is measured as the percentage of teachers absent due to personal motivation (2%), declining performance (5%) or illness (5%).…”

“…This governing body corresponds to the school board in control of a set of schools: a ‘school district’ . The school district has been shown to have a direct effect on student and financial outcomes (Bidwell & Kasarda, ; Heinesen, ; Saatcioglu et al ., ), or an indirect effect on student outcomes through teacher absenteeism (Theobald, ) and management practices (De Witte & Schiltz, ).…”

“…This governing body corresponds to the school board in control of a set of schools: a 'school district'. 1 The school district has been shown to have a direct effect on student and financial outcomes (Bidwell & Kasarda, 1975;Heinesen, 2005;Saatcioglu et al, 2011), or an indirect effect on student outcomes through teacher absenteeism (Theobald, 1990) and management practices (De Witte & Schiltz, 2017). specifying the functional form of cost functions is required to obtain more robust estimates of the optimal district scale and its decisive determinants.…”