Optimum Size of School Districts Relative to Selected Costs
| Pages | 178-192 |
| Published date | 01 February 1971 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009664 |
| Date | 01 February 1971 |
| Author | CESAR M. SABULAO,G. ALAN HICKROD |
| Subject Matter | Education |
178 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL, ADMINISTRATION
VOLUME IX, NUMBER 2 OCTOBER, 1971
Optimum Size of School Districts Relative to
Selected Costs
CESAR M. SABULAO AND G. ALAN HICKROD
(This is a revised version of a paper presented to the 1971 Annual Meeting of the
American Educational Research Association, New York.)
Economic efficiency of public school districts was explored by
utilization of the concept of economies and dis-economics of scale.
An optimum size relative to costs was discovered by analyzing the
data with curvilinear least squares regression and also with the
differential calculus. The sample was taken from elementary, high
school, and K-12 (unit) districts in the state of Illinois, U.S.A.
Suggestions for further research on the general notion of optimum
size of school districts are presented.
PREVIOUS RESEARH
One of the oldest approaches to obtaining efficiency in the public
schools has been the quest for an "optimum" school size. Unfor-
tunately this "optimum" has been almost as elusive to researchers
as the Holy Grail was to King Arthur's knights. The problem, as
Hickey1 has recently pointed out, is that we don't ask the right
questions. At the outset we should determine whether this
"optimum" size is being sought relative to (a) output, or to
(b) costs, or to (c) educational services provided. We also need to
determine just what units of analysis we are talking about, i.e.,
school districts versus individual attendance centers. The right
question, it would seem, is to ask what the "optimum" size is relative
to all three variables simultaneously, or at least for two of them,
that is, cost and output. We hasten to inform the reader that we
have not asked that question and hence must join a number of other
studies in the purgatory of partial analysis.
DR. CESAR M. SABULAO is Vice-President on Academic Affairs for the
Central Mindanao Colleges, Philippines. Dr. Sabulao holds the degrees of Bachelor
of Science (Silliman), B.S. in Education (Central Mindanao Colleges), M.A.
(Northeast Missouri State College) and Ph.D. (Illinois State University).
DR. G. ALAN HICKROD is Professor of Educational Administration at Illinois
State University. He holds the degrees of A.B. of Wabash College and M.A.T. and
Ed.D.
of Harvard University. Professor Hickrod is Reviews and Features Editor of
Planning and Changing.
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