The effects of school district personnel staffing ratios on student achievement in the state of Texas

The purpose of this study was to describe variation in how school districts in Texas allocate personnel resources and explain the effect these decisions, student socioeconomic status and student to adult ratio, have on student achievement. The population consisted of all Independent, Municipal, Common, and Charter School Districts plus other educational entities at the 12th grade and below in Texas that report data annually to the Texas Education Agency (TEA). These data are compiled into a report published by TEA called ‘Snapshot’ that is available on the Internet. The data in this study were from the Snapshot 99 report. The three research questions and key findings on each follow.; Do district personnel allocations have a correlation to student achievement? The key finding of this study supports the theory that staffing ratios are related to student achievement, although not as strongly or consistently as this study anticipated.; Which staffing ratio has the strongest correlation and effect on student achievement? The key finding was that % educational-aides had the strongest although negative effect on student achievement. Additionally, when comparing the top achieving 25% of districts to the remaining population, these top districts allocate more than the average into administration. This is true at the campus level, and even more so at the central office level. They also add slightly to the average percent of teachers present. All of this comes from reductions in the educational aide category and in professional support.; Lastly, do staffing patterns exist which minimize or eliminate the effect of low socioeconomic status (SES) on student achievement? The key finding was that this research could not conclusively state such ratios exist. By concentrating on the top 25% of districts and analyzing their staffing patterns, a decided difference was noted in the areas of percent teaching and percent central administration. This was true in all districts in the top 25% but became a pronounced difference when the data were further refined to include specifically high success and high percent low-SES districts. Within those districts central office personnel produced an unexpectedly high positive correlation to student achievement.