EFFICIENT UTILIZATION OF RESOURCES IN PUBLIC-SCHOOLS - A CASE-STUDY OF NEW-JERSEY

The academic performance of public schools in the United States has be en declining for more than two decades now, and this is a hotly debate d topic since this deterioration in performance has important implicat ions on the quality of labour and on the productivity growth of the na tion (Bishop, 1989). Moreover, the performance among school districts in states varies significantly, raising questions about the factors co ntributing to the large variability in performance. One area where the current debate has been focused is the ability and quality of the sch ool management to use the available resources efficiently, giving rise to the issues of a voucher system and the private management of the p ublic schools. This study measures the efficiency of public schools fo r the state of New Jersey using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) me thod; it also examines the effect of certain socio-economic factors on efficiency. We find that the average efficiency for all schools is 81 %. The wealthiest districts have an efficiency score of 88% while for the neediest districts the efficiency is 63%. However, when we adjust for socio-economic factors the difference between the two groups becom es smaller.