Which of the Best Dallas Suburbs Spend School District Dollars Most Effectively?

Posted on June 29th, 2012 3:15pm by Jason Heid
Filed under Education, Local News
Not all of Southlake Carroll's money goes into its football program. Photo by Melisa Oporto

Not all of Southlake Carroll's money goes into its football program. Photo by Melisa Oporto

Once again wanting to take a closer look at the data behind our ranking of the Best Dallas Suburbs, I decided to find out which school districts were making the most efficient use of their funds.

For each school district we came up with an overall education score (ranging from 1 to 5). Factored in were the average SAT score, the percentage of students taking college entrance exams, the TAKS passing percentage, and the total dollars spent per pupil.  The top education score went to Highland Park and University Park (both part of Highland ISD), with a 4.7. The lowest was Lancaster with a 2.0.

So I divided each district’s dollars spent per pupil by the points scored on our education rating above the minimum to determine dollars spent per pupil per point earned.  That’s my rough approximation of the districts that spend the least per student to get the most.

Jump for the top 10, with total $ spent, our education score, and the $ per education score above the minimum listed:

1. Highland Park/University Park $4,846 4.7 $1,303
2. Southlake $4,850 4.4 $1,429
3. Coppell $4,902 4.3 $1,477
4. Plano/Murphy/Parker $4,957 4.0 $1,626
5. Allen $4,357 3.7 $1,626
6. Grapevine-Colleyville $4,780 3.9 $1,675
7. Fairview (Lovejoy/McKinney ISDs) $4,953 3.9 $1,687
8. Lewisville/Flower Mound/Highland Village/The Colony $4,894 3.8 $1,777
9. Frisco $4,960 3.7 $1,804
10. Sunnyvale $5,918 4.3 $1,815



The suburbs lumped together are part of the same district. Fairview’s data came from the two different districts that serve it.

As for the opposite end of this list, the district that spent the most to get the lowest scores on our scale, that’d be Grand Prairie at the bottom/top, followed by Irving, Lancaster, all the suburbs served by Dallas ISD (Cockrell Hill, Hutchins, Seagoville, Wilmer, Addison), Waxahachie, Balch Springs/Mesquite, DeSoto, Duncanville, and Cedar Hill.

3 comments

  1. If you want to take this one step further, calculate the $$ per student that the district has to raise in taxes and send off to other districts under the Robin Hood feature of our school finance system.

    @ 3:39 pm on June 29, 2012

  2. Through my service on the Dallas ISD Citizens Budget Review Commission, I learned about Education Resources Group which measures the academic and financial performance of Texas schools. Page 119 of a presentation to the commission would indicate that praise is due to Carrollton, Mesquite, Garland and Richardson: http://www.dallasisd.org/cms/lib/TX01001475/Centricity/Domain/78/CBC%2003052012%20REVISED%202.pdf
    Not included in your analysis which is factored in ERG’s is the percentage of low income students. Also see pages 113 & 114.

    And if you visit ERG’s website, you’ll see that their analytical model identified Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Richardson, Duncanville & Mansfield as top performers in academic and financial performance: http://www.educationresourcegroup.com/popup_bestdistricts.htm

    Also worth noting is that DISD received two awards for excellence in budget preparation from Association of School Business Officials International and Government Finance Officers Association as described on pages 5 and 7 here: http://www.dallasisd.org/cms/lib/TX01001475/Centricity/Domain/78/BudgetPresentation4-2BudgetBook_June2812.pdf

    @ 5:07 pm on June 29, 2012

  3. Where does Richardson place in this. I didn’t see them listed? They’re one of the larger school districts.

    @ 5:14 pm on June 29, 2012