"DPI" is an acronym for "District Productivity Index," and is a measure of the fiscal effectiveness/efficiency with which a school district achieves its performance results.
With money becoming increasingly tighter for both taxpayers and school districts, more attention is being focused not only on school performance, as represented by ODE Achievement Test results, but just how effectively schools are using their funding to achieve their results.
Schools are businesses. Their "product" is young men and women who emerge from high school equipped with the knowledge and skills to live independently and to become productive members of society.
Taxpayers "invest" in these businesses. And they want to make sure their tax dollars are being used wisely.
Until now, there has been no single measure with which one could compare school districts with a "Return on Investment" measure ... a way of quantifying the fiscal effectiveness/efficiency with which district boards and administrations achieve their results.
That is the purpose of the "District Productivity Index" or DPI.
How, for example, do you compare a suburban district which consistently scores in the 98th percentile of all Ohio districts, but which spends nearly $15,000 per pupil to do so, with a rural district which performs in the 12th percentile, and which spends less than $10,000 per student?
How about a district with achievement in the 91st percentile, and which accomplishes this with just over $7500 per student?
Or a district which spends $14,000 per pupil, but achieves in the 6th percentile?
You compare these schools by looking at their performance per dollar spent per pupil.