Applying the modified quadriform to measure efficiency in Texas public schools

The purpose of this study was to identify school districts in the state of Texas that would be considered efficient based on the modified quadriform model, and to identify alterable school characteristics most associated with those efficient schools. The researcher used data from the 2003-2004 Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System in this analysis. Texas school districts that had low expenditures with high student output were classified as efficient. There were two stages to the modified quadriform analysis. In stage one the relationship between input and output was evaluated by two separate linear regressions. The input regression modeled total per pupil expenditure for the district regressed against unalterable school characteristics such as total district enrollment, percentage of economically disadvantaged students, percentage of special education students, percentage of minority students, and local tax base value per pupil. In the output regression six different measures of student outcomes were regressed against the same unalterable characteristics. The measures of student achievement used were the percentage of all students passing the math and reading Texas Assessments of Knowledge and Skills, graduation completion rate, percentage of students taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the ACT Test, and the mean scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and/or ACT Test. Once the efficient school districts were identified using the positive and negative residuals from the regressions, a discriminant analysis was conducted to determine what alterable characteristics had the most significant relationship with the different student outcome measures. Just over 32% of Texas School Districts would be considered efficient in this model, and the number of students per teacher has a significant relationship with the output measures of mean SAT and ACT scores, district completion rate, and Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills scores in both math and reading. The data also showed that the percentage of expenditures at central administration was least associated with mean Scholastic Aptitude Test and ACT scores along with district completion rate. This study was intended to be a descriptive ??????bird??????s eye?????? view of efficiency in the Texas system, the researcher believes that this initial study will be a catalyst for more focused research using this production function method of measuring efficiency, and that one day it may lead to an operational definition of efficiency in the Texas system.