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Measuring the Impact of Socio-Economic Factors on School Efficiency in Australia

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Abstract

This paper examines the productive efficiency of government schools in New South Wales (NSW) in Australia. The study uses a technical inefficiency effects model applied to a unique three-year panel dataset containing 1235 primary and 371 secondary schools in NSW. A stochastic frontier production function and an inefficiency effects function that control for school socioeconomic and environmental factors are estimated. The dataset contains information on various school inputs, school expenditures by major functional area, parental socioeconomic characteristics, student characteristics, and standardized test scores. We examine the degree to which school and non-school educational inputs influence student achievement scores and find that, overall, primary schools are 88.6% and secondary schools 96.4% efficient. The index describing community socio-educational advantage has the most significant influence on students’ achievement scores.

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Notes

  1. The test scores for each subject area are aggregated. For primary schools, the weights assigned for 3rd and 5th grade are 0.4 and 0.6. For secondary schools, the weights for 7th and 9th grades are 0.4 and 0.6, respectively.

  2. The ICSEA index is constructed from socio-educational elements over which the school has very little control, such as average income, level of education, and the type of employment for the household of students enrolled in schools (NSW DET 2010).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Vincent C. Blackburn, Manager, Statistical Performance Reporting, Finance and Investment, Department of Education and Communities, New South Wales for supplying the dataset used for this study. We are also grateful to Vince for providing valuable comments and suggestions on the earlier version of this paper. Special thanks to Prof. Subal Kumbhakar at Binghamton University for his comments and suggestions during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development, University of West Florida, 220 W. Garden Street, Suite 303, Pensacola, FL, 32502, USA

    Kalyan Chakraborty

  2. Department of Economics and Marketing, University of West Florida, 11000 University Parkway, Pensacola, FL, 32504, USA

    Richard K. Harper

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  1. Kalyan Chakraborty
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Correspondence to Kalyan Chakraborty.

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Chakraborty, K., Harper, R.K. Measuring the Impact of Socio-Economic Factors on School Efficiency in Australia. Atl Econ J 45, 163–179 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-017-9542-x

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