Abstract
In this chapter we apply the DEA models presented in Chap. 3. We focus on the input-oriented models to measure technical, scale and input allocative efficiency of the primary and secondary schools in Australia. In addition, we also present a production based model of adequacy. In recent years, there has been a movement towards measuring adequacy of educational service provision, defined by Berne and Stiefel (1999) and Duncombe and Yinger (1999) as the minimum amount of resources necessary for a school to meet some pre-defined absolute standard of performance. Typically, this is defined as achieving minimum passing standards on standardized tests. In this chapter, we measure technical, allocative and scale efficiency of Australian schools using the models developed in Chapter 3. We also apply a model (Ruggiero 2007b) to measure the minimum expenditure necessary to provide an adequate education by projecting observations using the predefined adequacy standards instead of the observed outcomes. We use data from school year 2009–2010. In the following section, we discuss our data.
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- 1.
The correlations between tests scores for the primary schools for grade 3 (5) were all above 0.94 (0.92). For the secondary schools, the correlations were above 0.92 (0.90) for the seventh (ninth) grade scores.
- 2.
We were unable to calculate adequacy costs for 37 secondary schools; 23 of these schools were in the lowest enrollment quintile.
- 3.
The inputs used in the DEA models are measured per pupil.
References
Berne, R., & Stiefel, L. (1999). Concepts of school finance equity: 1970 to the present. In H. Ladd, R. Chalk, & J. Hansen (Eds.), Equity and 51 adequacy in education finance. National Academy: Washington, DC.
Berne, R., & Steifel, L. (1984). The measurement of equity in school finance: Conceptual, methodological, and empirical dimensions. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Duncombe, W., & Yinger, J. (1999). Performance standards and educational cost indexes: You can’t have one without the other. In H. Ladd, R. Chalk, & J. Hansen (Eds.), Equity and adequacy in education finance. Washington, DC: National Academy.
Ruggiero, J. (2007a). A comparison of DEA and the stochastic frontier model using panel data. International Transactions in Operational Research, 14, 259–266.
Ruggiero, J. (2007b). Measuring the cost of meeting minimum educational standards: An application of data envelopment analysis. Educational Economics, 15, 1–13.
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Blackburn, V., Brennan, S., Ruggiero, J. (2014). Input-Oriented Efficiency Measures in Australian Schools. In: Nonparametric Estimation of Educational Production and Costs using Data Envelopment Analysis. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, vol 214. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7469-3_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7469-3_4
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