县域内初等学校最优规模的估算——以W市辖JX郊县为案例的研究

The Optimal Scale of the Elementary Schools in a County: As a Case Study of JX County, W Municipality

本研究提供了如何同时将教育质量、公共教育成本和私人教育成本纳入成本函数,进而来估算初等学校最优规模的方法,并运用该方法测算了JX县最优的初等学校规模和学校数。研究结果表明,不考虑私人成本,生均公共成本曲线呈"L"型。加入私人成本后,生均教育总成本曲线由原来"L"形被拉高呈"U"型,即存在最优的学校规模,最优学校规模由曲线最低点决定。若要提高教育质量,就需更多的公共投入,相应地最优的学校规模也会随之变化。以JX县为案例实证结果还表明,在偏远的山区的确应该保留更多的初等学校,以降低私人教育成本和方便学生入学。

This study provides a method that determine the optimal school scale by constructing a cost function ,then we use the method to estimate the optimal scool scale and the number of schools in JX county.We assume that the global cost consists of two parts：a public cost and a private commuting cost. Besides,by empirical study ,we find that the educational quality has a relationship with public investment.So we construct the cost function combining the three components. Our results demonstrates that the average global cost curve is L-shaped when ignore the private cost.However, introducing commuting cost will raise the average global cost curve,and reshape the L-shaped curve into a U-shaped curve,and the optimal scale will lie at the lowest point.The empirical research demonstrates that more schools should be keeped to reduce the private cost in remote mountain area.It is convient for students to go to school.