重点班能否提升高中生的学业成绩?——基于西部某市普通高中的断点回归设计研究

Can the Elite Classes Improve the Academic Achievement of High School Students?Based on Regression Discontinuity Design of Senior High Schools in a Western City

设立重点班是普通高中教育实践中常见的资源配置策略,但由于缺乏实证依据,其公平与效率问题长期备受争议。本文采用我国西部某市五所县域普通高中2017和2018两届学生的追踪数据,运用断点回归方法,从提升学生学业成绩的角度检验设置重点班的有效性。研究发现,尽管重点班学生高一分班和高三时的分数均高于普通班学生,但此期间重点班与普通班学生的成绩差距没有显著拉大。进一步,利用重点班分数线这一外生变量,估计高一分班分数线附近能力类似,但分别进入普通班和重点班的两类学生在高三时的成绩差异。参数估计和非参数估计结果均显示进入重点班没有显著提高学生的学业成绩,在男女、城乡学生间也未发现异质性差异。由此可知,普通高中的重点班并非是优化教育资源配置与提升学生学业成绩的有效策略,更可能是资优生与普通生成绩差距的固化器。未来普通高中班级设置需兼顾公平与效率,促进不同类型学生的增值发展。

In practice,grouping elite classes is a relatively common resource allocation strategy in high school.However,due to the lack of empirical evidence,its fairness and efficiency have long been controversial.This paper uses the longitudinal data of the students of the 2017 and 2018 cohorts of five high schools in a city in western China,and uses the method of regression discontinuity to test the effectiveness of grouping elite classes from the perspective of improving students’academic performance.The results show that:although the students’academic performance in the elite classes were higher than those in the normal class in the first grade and third grade,the performance gap between the elite class and the normal class did not significantly widen during this period.Further,using the exogenous variable of the cutoff-line of the elite classes in the classes grouping of grade 1,it is estimated that the students’performance difference between entering the normal classes and the elite classes in grade 3,the students whose ability is similar near the cutoff-line.Both the parameter estimation and non-parametric estimation results show that entering the elite classes did not significantly improve the student’s academic performance,and no heterogeneous difference between genders and between urban and rural students.From this,it can be seen that the grouping elite classes in high schools are not an effective strategy for optimizing the allocation of educational resources and improving students’academic performance,but are more likely to cure the performance gap between gifted and normal students.In the future,grouping classes in high school need to take into account fairness and efficiency,and promoting the value-added development of different types of students.