Education Transparency index (ETI) Presentation
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This document presents findings from a study examining transparency practices across 285 school districts in Texas. It introduces transparency concepts and describes the methodology for evaluating school district websites. Key findings include: the top performing districts for overall transparency, information disclosure, financial transparency, infrastructure information, and personnel management; the top five best and worst performing areas; and that enrollment size does not necessarily correlate with transparency performance. Districts show room for improvement, particularly in long-term planning, workforce strategies, and performance metrics.
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Education Transparency index (ETI) Presentation
- 1. THE EDUCATION TRANSPARENCY INDEX: Grading Public Education Governments in Texas April 15, 2015
- 2. DR. DOMONIC BEARFIELD’S 2015 CAPSTONE Jonathan Bates Michael Hart Molly Beck Hugo Hernandez Alan Blanch Catherine Jones Page Whalen
- 3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A well informed citizenry encourages public administrators to make responsible decisions that reflect their values and facilitates social participation. We examined the extent to which public school districts exercise transparency of administrative practices in Texas. Analysis of 285 school districts’ websites suggest there is room for improvement of current transparency practices by district administrators.
- 4. PRESENTATION ROAD MAP • Examining Transparency • Methodology • Overview of Findings • Analysis and Discussion • Future Research • Questions and Answers
- 6. WHAT IS TRANSPARENCY? “The disclosure of information by an organization that enables external actors to monitor and assess its internal workings and performance.” (Grimmelikhuijsen & Welch 2012) • Inward Observability • Active Disclosure • External Accessibility
- 7. WHY TRANSPARENCY? Texas Property Tax Mean Total Mean SD Tax Rate $1.2122 / $100 Mean Municipal Tax Rate $0.49 / $100 Mean County Tax Rate $0.48 / $100 Mean SD Expenditures $42.8 M Total SD Expenditures $53.36 B Source: Texas State Comptroller, 2013 2013
- 8. WHY TRANSPARENCY? Managerial Benefits Administrativ e cost savings Social, political, and strategic benefits
- 9. MEASURING MANAGERIAL TRANSPARENCY • PEW Research Center • Government Performance Project: A State Management Report Card (2008) Money Informatio n Infrastructur e People
- 10. WHAT WE LOOKED FOR • Evidence of best practices on school district website • School districts may be implementing these best management practices
- 11. METHODOLOGY
- 12. THE CODEBOOK Standardized website evaluation procedures by creating a data codebook • Limited bias and increased data reliability • Indicators = “best practices” from literature
- 13. *Split into Digital Democracy & Digital Governance. SUBVARIABLES ANALYZED Money Long-Term Outlook Contracts & Purchasing Budget Process Structural Balance Financial Controls/Report ing Informatio n Strategic Direction Performance -Based Budgeting Performance Management Program Evaluation E- Governance* Infrastructur e Maintenance Capital Planning Project Monitoring Internal Coordinatio n Intergovernmen tal Coordination People Retaining Employees Hiring Training & Developmen t Strategic Workforce Planning Managing Employee Performance
- 14. STUDY SAMPLE Analyzed all school districts within the 217 Texas municipalities examined in the MPI (2013) • 285 school districts, excluding charter schools • Pilots included municipalities and out-of-state districts
- 15. WEBSITE UTILITY Approached from the perspective of our clients: average interested citizens • The “3-Click Rule” (Glassey 2004) • Websites: Search bar functionality • PDF Documents: Control + F for PDF
- 16. Money Long-Term Outlook Contracts & Purchasing Budget Process Structural Balance Financial Controls/Report ing Informatio n Strategic Direction Performance -Based Budgeting Performance Management Program Evaluation E- Governance* Infrastructu re Maintenance Capital Planning Project Monitoring Internal Coordinatio n Intergovernmen tal Coordination People Retaining Employees Hiring Training & Developmen t Strategic Workforce Planning Managing Employee Performance *Split into Digital Democracy & Digital Governance SUBVARIABLES ANALYZED
- 17. RICHARDSON ISD – FINDING THE BUDGET • Start at the homepage.
- 18. RICHARDSON ISD – FINDING THE BUDGET • 1st click.
- 19. RICHARDSON ISD – FINDING THE BUDGET • 2nd click.
- 20. RICHARDSON ISD – FINDING THE BUDGET • 3rd click.
- 21. RICHARDSON ISD – FINDING THE BUDGET • Open document.
- 23. THE MONEY VARIABLE • A 3-5 year financial outlook supported with multi-year projections and anticipated future costs. Long-Term Outlook • Policies for purchasing materials and managing contracts that reflect citizens’ values. Contracts & Purchasing • A narrative outlining the budget development process and active methods to engage citizens. Budget Process • A reserve fund balance that shows the district spends within its means. Structural Balance • Financial performance reporting mechanisms and a systematic financial accountability schedule. Financial Controls/Reporti ng
- 24. THE INFORMATION VARIABLE • A comprehensive plan for the district’s future that guides decision-making and goal-setting. Strategic Direction • Performance measures exist and are used in budgetary decision-making. Performance- Based Budgeting • Evidence of a performance management systems in place for district programs and initiatives Performance Management • Audits are performed by district administrators and the reports made available online. Program Evaluation • An online system for requesting school services where citizens can obtain information and participate in decision- making processes. E-Governance (Digital Democracy & Digital Governance)
- 25. THE INFRASTRUCTURE VARIABLE • The budget has line items in their capital budget for preventative and proactive maintenance. Maintenance • A long-range capital improvement plan is available and current within the past 3 years. Capital Planning • Project management and monitoring system for current capital projects. Project Monitoring • District has a meeting agenda discussing capital projects with essential district staff present. Internal Coordination • District has a link to school board and/or planning meeting information which involve various stakeholders. Intergovernmen tal Coordination
- 26. THE PEOPLE VARIABLE • The presence of employee retention plan that seeks to maintain a highly qualified and skilled staff. Retaining Employees • An online employment application system is available to the public and for faculty and staff. Hiring • Districts offer training and professional development services to enhance their employees. Training & Development • A comprehensive plan outlining a district’s current and future human capital needs. Strategic Workforce Planning • An employee handbook/policies managing and evaluating employees performance. Managing Employee Performance
- 27. Money Long-Term Outlook Contracts & Purchasing Budget Process Structural Balance Financial Controls/Report ing Informatio n Strategic Direction Performance -Based Budgeting Performance Management Program Evaluation E- Governance* Infrastructu re Maintenance Capital Planning Project Monitoring Internal Coordinatio n Intergovernmen tal Coordination People Retaining Employees Hiring Training & Developmen t Strategic Workforce Planning Managing Employee Performance *Split into Digital Democracy & Digital Governance SUBVARIABLES ANALYZED
- 29. TOP OVERALL TRANSPARENCY SCORES Ran k District Transparen cy Total Enrollment City Covered SD Mean 18.3 1 Austin ISD 40 85,661 Austin 2 Coppell ISD 33 10,781 Dallas – Fort Worth San Angelo ISD 33 14,292 San Angelo 4 Comal ISD 32 18,235 New Braunfels Conroe ISD 32 52,912 Houston Northwest ISD 32 17,124 Fort Worth Stafford MSD 32 3,301 Houston Wylie ISD 32 3,550 Dallas 9 Alief ISD 31 45,738 Houston Richardson ISD 31 37,262 Dallas 11 Dallas ISD 30 158,009 Dallas Houston ISD 30 204,548 Houston Humble ISD 30 36,606 Houston
- 30. TOP OVERALL TRANSPARENCY SCORES District Transparency Total Information Money Infrastructure People SD Mean 18.3 6.3 3.6 3.5 4.9 Austin ISD 40 12 10 8 10 Coppell ISD 33 7 8 10 8 San Angelo ISD 33 7 8 8 10 Comal ISD 32 7 8 8 9 Conroe ISD 32 10 8 6 8 Northwest ISD 32 10 10 6 6 Stafford MSD 32 8 10 8 6 Wylie ISD 32 8 8 8 8 Alief ISD 31 7 10 8 6 Richardson ISD 31 7 10 8 6 Dallas ISD 30 8 10 4 8 Houston ISD 30 8 6 8 8 Humble ISD 30 8 6 6 10
- 31. TOP INFORMATION SCORES Rank District Information Total Enrollment SD Mean 6.3 1 Austin ISD 12 85,661 2 Conroe ISD 10 52,912 Northwest ISD 10 17,124 4 Arlington ISD 9 64,629 Garland ISD 9 57,747 Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD 9 21,611 Klein ISD 9 46,431 8 China Spring ISD + 36 others 8 2,392
- 32. TOP MONEY SCORES Rank District Money Total Enrollment SD Mean 3.6 1 Alief ISD 10 45,738 Austin ISD 10 85,661 Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD 10 26,257 Dallas ISD 10 158,009 Greenville ISD 10 4,744 Keller ISD 10 33,142 Northwest ISD 10 17,124 Richardson ISD 10 37,262 Stafford MSD 10 3,301 10 Allen ISD +26 others 8 19,530
- 33. TOP INFRASTRUCTURE SCORES Rank District Infrastructure Total Enrollment SD Mean 3.5 1 Coppell ISD 10 10,781 North East ISD 10 67,315 Plano ISD 10 55,038 Spring Branch ISD 10 34,119 5 Abilene ISD + 20 others 8 17,039
- 34. TOP PEOPLE SCORES Rank District People Total Enrollment SD Mean 4.9 1 Austin ISD 10 85,661 College Station ISD 10 10,901 Grapevine-Colleyville ISD 10 13,465 Humble ISD 10 36,606 Mansfield ISD 10 32,571 San Angelo ISD 10 14,292 7 Comal ISD 9 18,235 Harlingen CISD 9 18,422 Manor ISD 9 7,879 Taylor ISD 9 3,148 11 Birdville ISD + 24 others 8 23,860
- 35. TOP 5 PERFORMING SUBVARIABLES • Hiring [97%] • Digital Democracy [94.4%] • Strategic Direction [94%] • Digital Governance [84.5%] • Maintenance [78%] % indicates that the noted percent of school districts satisfied codebook requirements for this sub-variable
- 36. TOP 5 AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT • Intergovernmental Coordination [13%] • Long-term Outlook [8%] • Strategic Workforce Plan [6.7%] • Performance Management [2.5%] • Performance-Based Budgeting [2.1%] % indicates that the noted percent of school districts satisfied codebook requirements for this sub-variable
- 37. ANALYSIS
- 38. RANGE OF ENROLLMENTS SD Population Range Number of Districts in Observation 0-1000 35 1,001-5,000 90 5,001-10,000 58 10,001-25,000 48 25,000-50,000 31 50,001-Houston (ISD) 18
- 39. ENROLLMENTS OF DISTRICTS OBSERVED 0 25000 50000 75000 100000 125000 150000 175000 200000 225000 1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 41 46 51 56 61 66 71 76 81 86 91 96 101 106 111 116 121 126 131 136 141 146 151 156 161 166 171 176 181 186 191 196 201 206 211 216 221 226 231 236 241 246 251 256 261 266 271 276 281 AverageEnrollmentSize School Districts District Enrollments - 4 Year Average SD Median 5,812 Enrollment data taken from TEA Snapshots 2010 - 2014
- 40. TRANSPARENCY SCORES BY ENROLLMENT SIZE District Enrollment Rank Transparency Rank Transparency Total Austin ISD 5 1 40 Conroe ISD 17 4 32 Alief ISD 21 9 31 Houston ISD 1 11 30 Dallas ISD 2 12 30 San Angelo ISD 78 2 33 Coppell ISD 94 3 33 Comal ISD 65 5 32 Northwest ISD 67 6 32 Richardson ISD 31 10 31 Wylie ISD 189 7 32 Stafford MSD 202 8 32 Kilgore ISD 178 36 26 Pine Tree ISD 167 47 25 Lockhart ISD 161 57 24 Thrall ISD 257 60 24 West Orange-Cove CISD 222 69 23 Lorena ISD 234 80 22 McGregor ISD 238 94 21 La Vega ISD 213 110 20 90th Percentile (above 39,061) 75th Percentile (between 5,813 and 39,060) 50th Percentile (between 2,977 and 5,812) 25th Percentile (below 2,977 )
- 41. AVERAGE OPERATING EXPENDITURES OF DISTRICTS OBSERVED 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 Springtown Canyon Huffman RiverRoad Hutto EctorCounty CentralHeights Kilgore PineTree Garland Dickinson Borger Frisco Midland Beeville Northside Coppell Ennis PleasantGrove Channelview Crawford CollegeStation Temple Bryan Lewisville Joshua Riesel Killeen Irving Dumas Boerne CopperasCove Pasadena ElPaso BigSpring Gainesville Kerrville Denton Waco Vidor LaVega AlamoHeights Ysleta Edgewood TexasCity SouthSanAntonio Edcouch-Elsa London ValleyView HoustonHeights Mercedes Hallsburg Hidalgo Galveston SouthTexas FtSamHouston ExpendituresperPupil School Districts Operating Expenditures Per Pupil 3 Year Average SD Median $8,460.83 Enrollment data taken from TEA Snapshots 2010 - 2013
- 42. TRANSPARENCY SCORES BY OPERATING EXPENDITURES District Operating Exp. Rank Transparency Rank Transparency Total South Texas ISD 10 58 24 West Orange-Cove CISD 26 69 23 La Marque ISD 19 105 20 Lackland ISD 8 122 19 Robert Lee ISD 9 141 18 Austin ISD 55 1 40 Northwest ISD 97 6 32 Alief ISD 91 9 31 Dallas ISD 60 11 30 Houston ISD 85 12 30 San Angelo ISD 183 3 33 Coppell ISD 200 2 33 Stafford MSD 161 7 32 Comal ISD 189 4 32 Richardson ISD 171 10 31 Conroe ISD 270 5 32 Wylie ISD 280 8 32 Mansfield ISD 265 19 29 Thrall ISD 259 59 24 Cypress-Fairbanks ISD 272 49 24 90% Percentile 50-75% Percentile 25% Percentile 10% Percentile
- 43. REGRESSION VARIABLES General Population Average Enrollment Average Operating Expenditures Big District Full Model General Population (thousands) 0.0199*** 0.0213 (0.0049) (0.0139) Avg Enrollment (thousands) 0.127*** -0.0615 (0.0244) (0.0875) Avg Operating Expenditures per pupil (thousands) -1.167*** -1.081*** (0.3040) (0.2610) Big District (>25,000) 7.238*** 4.444*** (0.8160) (1.3730) Constant 13.36*** 13.33*** 26.47*** 14*** 26.13*** (0.3470) (0.3230) (4.5010) (0.6370) (3.0340) Region Fixed Effects Y Y Y Y Y Observations 275 280 280 280 275 R-squared 0.367 0.368 0.233 0.352 0.444 Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
- 44. STATEWIDE DISTRIBUTION OF TRANSPARENCY SCORES
- 46. DISCUSSION • Austin ISD is close to a model school district • Information and People variables were high performing • Low cost solutions to improving transparency
- 47. DISCUSSION • Big districts seem to behave differently than small districts • Negative relationship between operating expenditures per pupil and transparency
- 48. FUTURE RESEARCH Education Transparency Index: • Finalizing the districts Further Analysis: • Analyzing the determinants of transparency • Analyzing equity aspects of transparency • Evaluating the importance of transparency Transparency and signaling
- 49. CONCLUSION A well informed citizenry encourages public administrators to make responsible decisions that reflect their values and facilitate social participation. We examined the extent to which public school districts exercise transparency of administrative practices in Texas. Analysis of 285 school districts’ websites suggest there is room for improvement of current transparency practices by district administrators.
- 50. QUESTIONS?
- 51. PRESENTATION ROADMAP Executive Summary Analysis Presentation Road Map -Enrollment Size Examining Transparency -Average Operating Expenditures Variables and Subvariables -Regression -The Money Variable -Statewide Distribution -The Information Variable Discussion and Future Research -The Infrastructure Variable -Discussion -The People Variable -Future Research -Subvariables Analyzed -Conclusion Findings and Analysis Presentation Road Map -Top Overall Transparency Scores The Takeaway -Top 5 Performing Subvariables Acknowledgements
- 52. THE TAKEAWAY A well informed citizenry encourages public administrators to make responsible decisions that reflect their values and facilitate social participation. We examined the extent to which public school districts exercise transparency of administrative practices in Texas. Analysis of 285 school districts’ websites suggest there is room for improvement of current transparency practices by district administrators.
- 53. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to the following people for their contributions to the Education Transparency Index 2015 report: Payton Baldridge Dr. Bob Graham Dr. Domonic Bearfield Dr. Dan Goldberg Dr. Ann Bowman Michael Hardy Warren Chalklen Dr. Joanna Lahey Dr. Lori Taylor
- 54. APPENDIX
- 55. REGRESSION: NO REGION FIXED EFFECTS VARIABLES General Population Average Enrollment Average Operating Expenditures Big District Full Model General Population (thousands) 0.0230*** 0.0217 (0.0051) (0.0149) Avg Enrollment (thousands) 0.141*** -0.0462 (0.0244) (0.0902) Avg Operating Expenditures (thousands) -1.477*** -1.333*** (0.2640) (0.2280) Big District (>25,000) 7.753*** 4.059*** (0.7810) (1.4320) Constant 16.73*** 16.29*** 31.21*** 16.96*** 28.40*** (0.4540) (0.4430) (2.3560) (0.3730) (2.0920) Region Fixed Effects N N N N N Observations 275 280 280 280 275 R-squared 0.249 0.263 0.091 0.222 0.357 Robust standard errors in parentheses ***p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
- 56. REGRESSION: FULL MODEL COMPARISONS VARIABLES Full Model Full Model General Population (thousands) 0.0217 0.0213 (0.0149) (0.0139) Avg Enrollment (thousands) -0.0462 -0.0615 (0.0902) (0.0875) Avg Operating Expenditures (thousands) -1.333*** -1.081*** (0.2280) (0.2610) Big District (>25,000) 4.059*** 4.444*** (1.4320) (1.3730) Constant 28.40*** 26.13*** (2.0920) (3.0340) Region Fixed Effects N Y Observations 275 275 R-squared 0.357 0.444
Editor's Notes
- A well informed citizenry encourages public administrators to make responsible decisions that reflect their values and facilitate social participation. The ETI examined the extent to which public school districts exercise transparency of administrative practices in Texas. The findings suggest there is room for improvement of current transparency practices by district administrators, which can be facilitated by low-cost measures.
- Citizens School districts spent more money than the collected in taxes by the state Average tax rate doubles that of counties and municipalities Administrators Decreased administrative expenses Social, political, and strategic benefits
- Now I’m going to speak about the “how” of the Education Transparency Index (ETI). As part of this, we will examine a test case with the hopes that you all gain a more robust understanding of the project, which will help during Molly’s presentation of the findings and analysis.
- As Hugo just mentioned, content analysis of school district websites was performed, which necessitated the creation of a data cookbook so we adapted the MPI’s codebook to educational “governments. “This was done to stymie contamination from researcher subjectivity and bias. Each subvariable represents one dimension of administrative transparency. The performance of a subvariable was determined by the demonstration of using or the making available of precise indicators or "Best practices," as espoused in the literature.
- Here are the 20 subvariables used to calculate school districts ETI score’s. As Hugo mentioned, these are the same 20 subvariables outlined in Pew’s 2008 Government Performance Project. It should be noted that E-Governance was split into two separate sub-sub variables, Digital Democracy and Digital Governance.
- Because the ETI is the second installment of the “Grading Government” series, we analyzed school districts within the 217 Texas municipalities outlined in the 2013 Municipal Performance Index by the Texas Transparency Project’s previous capstone. Because school districts are not contiguous and they do not align themselves perfectly with municipal borders, 280 school districts were analyzed. Since we are primarily interested in public school districts, open enrollment charters were not included. Pilot studies were ran for the sake of data reliability and procedural validity. The 74% mean intercoder reliability for the pilot studies was higher than the 70% standard necessary to conti
- While our interests are both academic and practical, we approached the view of administrative transparency from the perspective of our clients, the average engaged and interested Texan. With that in mind, every decision that was made was done so with the average citizens’ online information gathering habits as our guide. For this reason, website usability was a requirement. While there is no bona fide rule, Glassy 2004 concluded the average online information gatherer will expend three clicks before giving up on their information search, a rule we adopted. In addition to having information easily accessible, information must be searchable. This led us to establish an “automatic 0” for sites and PDF documents unsearchable either with either a search bar or with the control + F function.
- Using Richardson ISD – located outside of Dallas – indicators were many times found within documents provided on the website and often being the information vehicle for more than one subvariable. The budget document is a great example of this, which can contain information for the long-term outlook, budget process, structural balance, financial controls/reporting, performance based budgeting, maintenance, capital planning, and possibly strategic workforce planning subvariables.
- LTO – “2” score: Documentation of long-term outlook is located in the financial reports of the school district website. This information forecasts the school district’s budgetary needs and features uses multi-year projections, accompanied by a related narrative, for how those long-term needs apply to the district as a general body. The money variable is responsible for all financial managerial responsibilities in fiscal management company and competencies. It's the chief responsibility of administrators to not only keep the ship afloat but also ensure that it will continue to do so in the future. Projecting what conditions might look in the future ensures this. Using 3- 5-year multiyear financial projections including student enrollments (which has potential implications on staffing and capital needs that might be important in the future), tax revenues expected to be gained through the increase in property taxes, as well as estimated expenditures.
- Sometimes called the other information variable, the information variable encompasses managerial practices that serve to enlighten direct or shed light on operational quality or systems performance. All subvariables either create new information to give is the school district objective metrics for the basis of decision-making or their purpose is for the dissemination of information to the constituency.
- The infrastructure variable aligns logistical and operational managerial spots abilities and competencies related to facilities in the environment.
- The people variable is responsible for mitt the managerial policies practices and actions related to the systems most important asset it's human capital. Already we talked about hiring but strategic workforce planning might be a little bit less intuitive.
- Transparency scores are based on the 21 sub-variables just outlined. Each sub-variable had a maximum of 2; the total points a school districts could obtain is 42. It is important to note that the transparency scores reflect what we were able to find online under the parameters set out by the codebook: Namely: 3 clicks, search function on website, and that a document should be searchable. As such, these scores do not reflect what best management practices school districts may be using, but only those practices we were able to find online.
- Based on the online transparency of best management practices of 285 districts the average score is 18.3, or 43% of the total possible points. The high score is 40 (Austin ISD) and a low of 1. We thought it was interesting that the next highest scoring district was Coppell and San Angelo at 33 points. This suggests that Austin is an outlier in terms of their transparency practices.
- Based on the online transparency of best management practices of 285 districts the average score is 18.3, or 43% of the total possible points. The high score is 40 (Austin ISD) and a low of 1. We thought it was interesting that the next highest scoring district was Coppell and San Angelo at 33 points. This suggests that Austin is an outlier in terms of their transparency practices.
- INFORMATION: The average score was 6.3 of 12 points. Although only one school district, Austin ISD, received a perfect score, 86% of the districts received a score of 6 or above.
- MONEY: The average score was 3.6 of 10 points. Although 9 school districts received a perfect score, 71% scored below 6 points.
- INFRASTRUCTURE: The average score was 3.5 of 10 points. We found that only 4 school districts received a perfect score, while 70% scored below 6 points.
- PEOPLE: The average score was 4.9 of 10 points. 129 districts received a score of five or above, and 151 districts received a score of 4 and below.
- As you can see, certain variables received higher scores than others – the information and people variables were considerably stronger than the infrastructure and money variables. 4 of our top performing 5 subvariables were either information or people. Among the transparency strengths demonstrated by the school district were sub-variables measuring e-governance. For the hiring sub-variable 97% of districts satisfied the codebook requirement – for context, in 2013, respondents to an International Public Management Association for Human Resources survey indicated that 16 % of their organizations do not accept applications online. Another strength was how districts communicate information with their citizens – Digital Democracy; most districts made upcoming school board agendas available as minutes and even videos from previous board meetings.
- There are some areas where school districts may improve their transparency practices. All four variables are represented here: -intergovernmental coordination falls under infrastructure -long-term outlook falls under money -strategic workforce plan falls under people -and performance management and performance based budgeting fall under information Imagine a your family is moving to a new city – and you’re looking at the school districts. From a performance management plan, you will be able to know how districts hope to improve their program successes and through long-term outlook you will be able to see the district’s projected expenditures. This may help you make decisions about where to live and in which school you will enroll your child. Or, as a school leader, you may find that providing this information will help improve communication and coordination between you and the public.
- We wanted to look at characteristics of districts and their transparency score to see if certain characteristics were related to higher transparency scores. For example, are bigger or smaller districts more prone to being transparent? Are districts who spend more money more transparent? We looked at selected characteristics of districts to answer those questions.
- While we only observed 285 school districts in Texas, their accumulated population accounts for 80% of enrolled students in Texas. Of our districts observed, 183 have enrollments at or less than 10,000 students.
- This graph demonstrates the range of enrollments. The median enrollment size for our observed school districts was 5,812 students. You’ll note the sharp increase in enrollments closer to the right of the graph. These mega districts include Houston and Dallas ISD – and of our observed districts, only 49 have enrollments over 25,000 students.
- We looked at total transparency scores by district population. If you look at the general trend, as enrollment increases transparency scores increase. However – we noticed that there seems to be a point at which increasing enrollments does not increase transparency scores. For example, if you look at San Angelo ISD, Coppell ISD, and Comal ISD – they rank in the 75th percentile of enrollments but outrank Houston ISD and Dallas ISD in transparency rank.
- We also wanted to look at whether increased spending increases transparency. Remember that school districts spent $53,356,468,731 on education in 2012/2013. The average expenditure per pupil for three years was $8,727.83. The median expenditure per pupil was $8,460.83.
- We looked at total transparency scores by operating expenditures per pupil. We found a general negative relationship between operating expenditures and transparency totals. For example, if you look at the 90th percentile of operating expenditures, their transparency rank is no higher than 58th.
- We wanted to know if any of our observational conclusions were supported empirically. Previous work on transparency – both literature and the Municipality Index found that transparency increases with population size and budget size. Therefore we looked at overall transparency scores and regressed them against Average Enrollments, Average Operating Expenditures per Pupil, and whether or not the district is a big district – with enrollments greater than 25,000. This table presents our preliminary findings. As you can see – each of our variables of interest – Average Enrollment, Operating Expenditures Per Pupil, and Big District are significant. Interestingly, average enrollments and big district are both positive – which supports previous findings of the positive relationship between population increase and transparency. Operating expenditures were negatively related – so as operating expenditures per pupil increase, transparency scores decrease.
- Finally, we would like to visualize the overall transparency scores for the school districts studied. The dark green indicates overall scores between 30 and 42. The mid-tone green depicts overall scores between 20 and 29 points, and the light green indicates scores between 0 and 19 points. As you look at the map, you may notice that there seems to be a clustering effect around high-performing school districts. These school districts are not isolated. What you see are dark green districts surrounded by mid-tone green districts. This may indicate that districts may be sharing information with each other.
- School districts performed especially well with respect to the provision of online resources. School districts can improve their communication of program performance. There seems to be a point at which increasing enrollment size does not increase transparency score. Big districts seem to behave differently than small districts Increasing operating expenditures per pupil seems negatively correlated with transparency score. Low cost solutions to improving transparency.
- A well informed citizenry encourages public administrators to make responsible decisions that reflect their values and facilitate social participation. The ETI examined the extent to which public school districts exercise transparency of administrative practices in Texas. The findings suggest there is room for improvement of current transparency practices by district administrators, which can be facilitated by low-cost measures.