Measuring technical efficiency in schools: a critic revision

From its origin, the techniques for measuring efficiency in schools have been widely applied to evaluate public expenditure in education. The aim of this study is to make a critic revision over the risks of performing efficiency analysis without considering the special characteristics of education, where production function is so complex. Moreover, this paper proposes decision trees in order to analyze the educational sector. This technique is able to generate logical rules to model the educational production function offering an easy framework to take decisions about the allocation of public expenditure in education. To illustrate these ideas this paper conducts an empirical analysis using a Spanish 15 year old students database from PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) captured in 2000.