Rich and poor in Saint Louis: Performance characteristics of public schools using a Data Envelopment Analysis approach

Many urban areas of the United States have experienced urban sprawl in the past 60 years. Severe out-migration of relatively wealthier families to ex-urban counties has left relatively poorer families behind. When combined with the recent national conversation about school improvement, this migration has caused significant stress on urban school districts, as indicated by population demographics, revenues, and school performance. This chapter looks at 22 public school districts in Saint Louis County, Missouri. It first reviews the decision environment for those districts and constructs a relative wealth variable from environmental factors. Then, using data envelopment analysis (DEA), it compares rich districts and poor districts, and attempts to classify the relative efficiencies of those districts. Three DEA models are considered: the baseline CCR-O (Model 1), a CAT-O-C model (Model 2), and a revised CCR-O (Model 3). Using computer software, DEA-Solver, these three model results are compared and analyzed to study the effects of each district's relative wealth on the model results. The study concludes that adding a relative wealth variable produces more robust model results and suggests that school district decisions may be improved by including a relative wealth variable in their decision-making processes.