Research On The Modest School Size Of Junior High School In Shanghai

The modest school size is of great significance for reducing the cost of education and increasing the return to education. Theoretical study and practical attempts about the school size abroad are to a certain reference to the reasonable adjustment of China’s school size, but China can not copy the conclusions of other countries, because the countries’ economy and education are at different levels. Meanwhile, research on school size in China is mostly concentrated in the field of higher education, while research in the field of primary and secondary schools is inadequate, which belong to compulsory education. As the leader of China’s compulsory education, Shanghai has external conditions to reasonably adjust the school size of compulsory education.According to this context, the study selected seven junior high schools at ordinary level in Shanghai Minhang, Putuo, Changning districts. Through studying how the school size influence the education cost and the educational benefit, it sought for the school size which reduces education cost and increases education benefit, and gave advice and guidance to the current adjustment of school size. Firstly, the study established index system for education cost and benefit according to the basic content of education cost and benefit, and based on the index system it prepared for the interview outline and questionnaire; then it surveyed the status quo of the seven schools’education cost and benefit through interviews and questionnaires; Finally, it dealt with the survey data using SPSS and Excel, and built a relational model of school size and education cost and of school size and educational benefit respectively. And through analyzing the influence of school size on education cost and benefit, it draw a conclusion that the scale range of a lower education cost is700-900students, and the scale range of a higher return to education is500-800students. With the intersection of the two ranges it came to the conclusion that moderate school size range for both lower education cost and a higher return to education is700-800students.This study not only reached the conclusion that what was the moderate school size range for both lower education cost and a higher return to education, and reached the relational model that how the school size affected the education cost and educational benefit. The study found that the function model of the school size and education cost and benefit was not as envisaged that only followed one curve model, but showed relationship of a variety of functions. Meanwhile, although the curve models are different, there is a similar trend:most of the relationship between school size and education cost shows as the quadratic function, or coincided with quadratic function in the size range of the sample schools; and most of the relationship between school size and education benefit shows as the characteristics of the piecewise function, that is the return to education is basically maintained a good level within the scope of a certain size; Exceeding this size, the return to education decreases dramatically with the expansion of the school size.Finally, according to the actual size range of the sample schools as well as the moderate school size range derived from the perspective of education cost and benefit, the study divided junior high school of Shanghai ordinary education level into the following scale range:300-500,500-700,700-800,800-900,900-1200, and gave planning proposals to schools of each size range. Despite of the constraints of the samples number and time, the conclusions of the study can not be promoted, but it can provide a reference for the following studies of school size.