Efficiency Evaluation in Secondary Schools: the key role of model specification and of ex post analysis of results

This paper evaluates the efficiency of a sample of Spanish secondary schools, paying particular attention to the theoretical specification of the measurement model and to the ex post analysis of the results, aspects which, despite being of undoubted importance, have nevertheless received little attention in the previous literature on the subject. The paper tries to demonstrate that, in order for a study of this nature to have the minimum solvency, it is the special characteristics of the education production process that must form the basic guidelines to be followed by the researcher. The paper also highlights the characteristics that differentiate the most efficient schools from the least efficient, and emphasises the importance of completing the information supplied by the quantitative methods of educational evaluation (such as data envelopment analysis), with data of a qualitative nature obtained by way of surveys directed at the pupils (customers) and the school decision-makers.