Education decentralization,school resources,and student outcomes in Korea

Government decentralization is in worldwide use for education reforms. It takes different forms across countries from political and fiscal perspectives. It is a unique feature that the governance of Korea is politically decentralized, but it remains fiscally federalized. In this article, we utilized both political and fiscal perspectives to evaluate her decentralization by school resources and student outcomes. After analyzing the panel data, we find that fiscal decentralization is positively related to student outcomes. In contrast, we find little evidence on any relationship between political decentralization, school resources, and student outcomes. Lastly, we draw useful policy implications for developing countries whose decentralization moves like Korea.     

The micropolitics of school district decentralization

This case study of school district educational reform in the United States adds to the knowledge base of macropolitics of federal, state and local governing bodies and private sector agencies in formulating educational policies: It also contributes to our understanding the microplitics of policy implementation. Middle managers’ political acquiescence and resistance to district-wide decentralization and distributive leadership initiatives were studied using a longitudinal, ten-year (1998–2008) case study method. Middle managers were faced with a dilemma when the school district implemented a state sponsored decentralization policy that included adoption of distributed leadership and Total Quality Management (TQM). On the one hand, middle managers risked termination if they failed to implement legislated reform policies and the superintendent’s directives. On the other hand, if they succesfully implemented such policies their positions would become redundant. Initially responses of middle managers ranged along a continuum from acquiescence to resistance however as implementation of the decentralization initiative accelerated, middle managers’ political resistance increased in scope and intensity. Findings from the case study discussed in this article that superintendent’s success at implementation of district-wide decentralization policies is related to the nature and structure of microplolitics at the middle management level of the organization. In addition, findings suggest that internal evaluation processes used to assess the success of the district change process were compromised by miropolitics. Understanding that those who implement policy have the capacity to reshape and even prevent implementation as intended by officials at higher levels may contribute to reframing program evaluation methods as well as enhancing understanding of the politics of the superintendency.     

Demand (and supply) in an inter-district public school choice program

This study examines parents’ demand for sending their children to a public school located outside their residential school district. Using a unique data set that contains information concerning both inter-district transfers and rejections of transfer applications, I am able to identify which school district characteristics attract the greatest demand for incoming transfers. The analyses reveal that mean student test scores are stronger predictors of transfer demand than both students’ socio-economic characteristics and school district spending, suggesting that parents care more about outcomes than inputs. In addition, while districts are only supposed to reject transfer students due to capacity concerns, districts’ supply decisions are also correlated with differences in student performance across neighboring districts.     

Effects of school choice on the margin: The cream is already skimmed

Critics of school choice argue that cream-skimming will worsen outcomes for those left behind in public schools. Since “high ability” families may have already sorted themselves out of the schools in question, this paper will examine whether existing within-school heterogeneity leaves any scope for cream-skimming to operate. It asks, “given the current level of within-school heterogeneity, how strong would peer effects have to be to significantly worsen outcomes for those left behind?” In order for cream-skimming to lower math test scores by one half-year's progress, the peer effect would have to be as strong as increasing class sizes by 8–20 students, or cutting per-student funding by $400–2000. These results indicate that current levels of within-school heterogeneity are so low that peer effects would have to be unrealistically strong to give cream-skimming any bite.     

Municipal and private sector response to decentralization and school choice

A large number of developing nations are in the process of decentralizing basic education, with the aim of diversifying revenue sources and introducing greater accountability and efficiency. This is especially true in Latin America, where Chile introduced the first significant reform in 1981. This reform kept most of the responsibility for educational finance with the Ministry of Education but transferred the responsibility for delivering services to municipalities and non-profit, private schools. In response to this reform, municipalities increased their finance of public schools, and the supply of subsidized private education increased dramatically. By 1990, enrollment in subsidized private schools represented about one-third of total primary-secondary school enrollments. This paper examines the effects of the reform. Municipal finance, which is closely tied to municipal fiscal capacity, has created inequities in school expenditures even though it represents only 10% of total revenues. Variations in the private school market share across municipalities are principally explained by the ease of market entry, family socioeconomic status, and the relative performance of public and private schools; this model does not offer a satisfactory explanation of the growth in private school enrollments in Chile over time. The effect of the reform on cost-effectiveness is ambiguous. Ministry of Education non-teacher employment declined by over half, while cognitive tests also declined. There is some evidence that the growth in private school enrollments may have improved overall efficiency since private schools are found to be slightly more cost-effective than public schools.     

Parental contributions,school‐level finances and decentralization: an analysis of Nicaraguan autonomous school budgets

The Nicaraguan Autonomous School Programme is notable among the growing number of school governance decentralization reforms in the Americas in the degree of control given to parents, especially in decisions regarding the allocation of school resources. Much of schools’ discretionary spending was accumulated through various school charges. This paper analyses rare school‐level budget data to determine the proportion of resources that derived from parental contributions and other school‐based commercial activity. We find the contributions to be significant, highly varied, and correlated with income. The results have implications for many decentralization reforms that encourage local contributions as part of both their financing and accountability strategies.     

Does money matter for schools?

There is considerable disagreement in the academic literature about whether raising school expenditure improves educational outcomes. Yet changing the level of resources is one of the key policy levers open to governments. In England, school expenditure has increased by about 40% since 2000. Thus assessing whether such spending has had an impact on educational outcomes is of paramount importance. We address this issue using data of better quality than what are often available in similar studies and test our identification assumption by use of a falsification test. We find that the increase in school expenditure over recent years has had a consistently positive effect on outcomes at the end of primary school. Back-of-envelope calculations suggest that the investment may well be cost-effective. There is also some evidence of heterogeneity in the effect of expenditure, with higher effects for students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.     

The effects of school board consolidation and financing on student performance

Over the last 20 years, states and provinces have become increasingly involved in the financing and administration of elementary and secondary education. Local school boards, however, still retain control over key aspects of the provision of education. Historically, these boards were organized at the community level so as to meet the wants of the local community. Today, states and provinces have become more interested in consolidating school boards and moving to a more centralized funding scheme. Do these changes result in improved student achievement? This paper attempts to answer these questions by examining the school board consolidation and funding changes instituted by the province of Ontario. We differentiate the effects of the policy changes based on observed differences in the school boards prior to consolidation. We show that students in previously high wealth school boards perform worse after the policy change compared to students in previously low wealth school boards.     

Federal policies,state responses,and community college outcomes: Testing an augmented Bennett hypothesis

We estimate the impact of increases in Federal student aid and higher education funding, such as the recently proposed American Graduation Initiative (AGI), on the outcomes of community colleges, including enrollments, list and average tuitions, and educational quality. We develop a reduced form model of state-level education policy in which state policy makers, who have objectives that differ from those of Federal policy makers, respond to changes in Federal policies. Our empirical specification treats state and institutional variables as endogenous; we interpret the coefficients as measuring the responses of state and institution officials to changes in Federal policies. We simulate the effects of AGI and find little evidence that states recapture Federal education resources. AGI would have a significant effect on educational quality but a limited effect on enrollments. An equivalent increase in Federal student aid would have greater impact on access and enrollments, but decrease educational quality.     

Strategic interaction among public school districts: Evidence on spatial interdependence in school inputs

This paper provides evidence on strategic interaction among public school districts in Massachusetts. The open enrollment program in Massachusetts is unique in testing the strategic competition thesis because it allows students to attend public schools located outside their home district. For each student who transfers out, funds are deducted from the sending district's local aid distribution and added to the receiving district's local aid. Thus, school districts no longer have the assurance of a ready supply of students and funding, instead they have to compete with neighboring districts, and enact strategies that will help retain as well as attract more students. A spatial econometric framework is applied to disentangle the correlation due to strategic interaction from the one that is simply due to spatially correlated error shocks. The results show that public school districts respond positively to the expenditure decisions of neighboring districts, thereby acting strategically when setting their own spending levels.     

Some economic guidelines for design of a charter school district

As the number of charter schools has grown nationally, there is increasing discussion of the consolidation of such schools into charter districts in which all schools would be charter schools from which parents would have the freedom to choose the school that they wished their student to attend. A major question is how such a charter school district would be organized to support its schools and who would perform the different functions required. It is argued that three economic guidelines need to be an important determinant of the solution to this question: the presence of economies of scale; transaction costs; and externalities. The article describes the application of these guidelines to the formation of a charter school district and suggests the different possibilities for addressing a range of important roles by schools, their districts and intermediate organizations and markets.     

某校H1N1甲型流感暴发的流行病学调查

目的了解大学校园内甲型流感疫情暴发的原因、特点和处理方法,总结应对策略.方法病例资料来源于某师范学校现场流行病学调查结果,按《福建省突发公共卫生事件应急办法》处理疫情,即停课、取消一切集体活动;疑似流感病例隔离治疗后进行现场调查和统计分析;对流感样病例鼻咽拭子标本,进行病毒分离与鉴定;对密切接触人群隔离检疫3 d;其他学生进行早晚发热筛查;由总务处对公共场所进行消毒.所有数据用SPSS 12.0软件处理.结果全校累计病例169例,总体罹患率为3.14%.整个疫情流行持续75 d,经处理后发病人数迅速下降,男、女生发病率差异无统计学意义教职工无发病.患者鼻咽拭子标本分离出H1N1型甲型流感病毒.结论此次流感躲发流行由甲型流感病毒H1N1型引起.暴发原因为在人口稠密的大学校园,无全面的针对性强的流行病暴发高峰季节的预防措施和针对校园突发公共卫生事件应急响应机制.     

高校专业实验室资源分配探讨

实验室资源合理分配是实验室管理的难点,文章从博弈论的角度分析了在实验室建设时,不同专业争夺实验室资源博弈的囚徒困境,深层次剖析了困境的产生根源,并在此基础上给出解决不同专业实验室资源争夺矛盾的策略,提出了打破囚徒困境、合理分配实验室资源的建议。     

利用网络资源促进高中英语学习

以新课标的全新理念为指导,借助网络开展英语教学活动,让学生成为学习的主人,能使学生的主体意识、主观能动性和创造性不断得到发挥,激发学生的学习兴趣,培养学生学习英语的自信心和合作精神。     

论学校教育资源的隐性浪费

针对我国教育资源严重不足的现状，各级教育机构应高度重视学校内部存在的惊人的教育资源隐性浪费问题：教育资源浪费主要表现为：目标错位造成的浪费、学校制度和机制及领导者观念造成的教育者和教育服务者人力资源的隐性浪费、学校科层等级及管理者观念造成的师生时间资源浪费等。为此．学校管理者当树立新的大资源观和服务观，变线性思维为横向思维，开发和挖掘现有资源潜能，实现领导“再造”，避免学校教育资源的隐性浪费。     

Effects of COVID-19 on school enrollment

We estimate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-reported school enrollment using a sample of 16-to-18-year-old youth from the January 2010 to the December 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS). The pandemic reduced the likelihood of students reporting that they were enrolled in high school by about 1.8 percentage points in April 2020 vs. in the same month in prior years, although enrollment rebounded back to typical levels by October 2020. Adverse effects on school enrollment were magnified for older vs. younger students, males vs. females, and among adolescents without a college-educated household member vs. adolescents from more educated households. Greater school responsiveness to the pandemic and high school graduation exit exams appear to have protected students from disengaging from school.     

Effects of social and individual school self-concepts on school engagement during adolescence

European Journal of Psychology of Education - While school self-concept is an important facilitator of a student’s school engagement, previous studies rarely investigated whether it may also...     

Effects of length of school day on kindergarten school performance and parent satisfaction

A study was conducted to assess the effects of changing the length and regularity of the kindergarten school day on prereading skills, attending skills, and parental opinion of the program. Two rural Colorado school systems were studied in a matched control-comparison design, with the experimental groups attending a full-day, every-other-day program. Results indicated there were no significant differences between the groups on measures of school achievement and behavior. However, parental dissatisfaction appeared to increase in the experimental program. There is a need for further studies of altering the length of school days for establishing policies for kindergarten schedules.     

教育分权内涵再探

教育分权的内涵可以从其客体、授权主体和受权主体三个方面做出新的阐释。教育分权的客体是隶属于第三部门教育领域的一种公共权力,它包括国家教育权、社会教育权和学校自主权。教育分权的授权主体与权力来源主体一样,都是政府。消解政府在公共教育权力配置中的垄断地位,重新定义政府在教育领域的行为范式,是在新的现实条件下的迫切需求。教育分权的受权主体是社会与学校。从社会角度来讲,主要考虑建立市场参与教育事务的运行机制;从学校层面上讲,主要考虑赋予学校自主权的问题。