Twenty-one districts comprise the focus districts that participated in interviews. As described earlier in this report, researchers grouped the districts by performance characteristics. Seven districts in level one demonstrated the highest performance levels. The seven districts in level two demonstrated the mid-range of performance among the focus districts, and seven districts in level three demonstrated the lowest student performance among the focus districts. This section includes descriptive information about these districts to set the context for the section on interview findings which follows.

Table 6 shows characteristics of students in the focus districts. Districts are coded with a letter and a number. Groupings by letter represent geographic location. For example, districts identified with “A” are in the same region of the state. Numerals after the alphabetic designation represent the performance level constructed for this study. Number 1 represents the highest performance level, number 2 the next-highest performance level, and number 3 is the lowest performance level. For example, district B1 is a high-performing district located in geographic region B. As a group the districts are representative of Texas as a whole as shown by the range of minority enrollments, low-income student enrollments, and enrollments in second language and special education programs. In general, the twenty-one districts are more representative of mid-size and larger school districts. Among the group, only three districts would be classified as small because they enroll fewer than 1,600 students. The twenty-one school districts serve over one-quarter of a million students.

Table 6: Student Characteristics in Focus Districts, 1999

Focus district performance characteristics are displayed in Table 7. The table documents the high performance of level one districts.

Table 7: Performance in Focus Districts, 1997-1999

Tables 8 and 9 report student and performance characteristics aggregated by level for the focus districts. On average, the groups have student demographics that reflect the state as a whole, although the focus districts as a whole have slightly higher percentages of low-income students. The statewide average for low-income students is about 49 percent.

Table 8: Student Characteristics of Level One, Two and Three Focus Districts, 1999

Table 9 shows the percentage of students passing all TAAS tests taken, by student group. The information confirms that level one districts have the highest performance among the twenty-one focus districts. Level three districts have the lowest performance.

Table 9: Performance of Level One, Two and Three Focus Districts, 1999

Table 10 shows expenditure patterns by function for focus districts averaged over a three-year period. Level one districts spent more than level two and level three districts, both in total dollars and in the instruction function. The information shown here does not permit conclusions about the relationship between resource allocation among education functions and performance level of the district.

Table 10: Average Per-Pupil Expenditures (All Funds) for Focus Districts by Performance Level (1996-97 to 1998-99)

Focus districts spend somewhat less for all functions than does the target data set (see Table 1). Total expenditures are also roughly 18 percent lower than statewide average total expenditures.