District Size, Teacher Qualifications, and Pupil Performance in Maine School Districts'

This study examines the relationships between district size, faculty educational qualifications and academic achievement in Maine's eighth grade students. Such relationships are often posited in the educational literature [3; 6; 16; 21]. Mean grade eight scores in mathematics, reading, and writing on the 1985 Maine Assessment Test are utilized as the measure of pupil performance. Aggregated to the school system level, these scores are often considered to be indicators of educational quality [12]. School system size and the qualifications of teachers within the school system are variables that have been important factors in the formulation of policies and practices intended to improve educational outcomes at the state level, For Maine, and other legislative jurisdictions that are predominantly rural, these variables have been associated with school district consolidation and teacher certification requirements. Thus, the variables are also of substantial interest to school board members and educators. Recent educational reforms have been primarily directed toward the improvement of learning outcomes as measured by pupil scores on norm-referenced, standardized tests [12]. Guthrie [II] and Mitchell and Encarnation [17] stressed that the contemporary emphasis on cognitive outcomes of schooling is the result of the emergent preeminence of the cultural value of quality which has been accompanied by reduced emphases on the values of equity and efficiency. This shift in cultural values is considered to be the result of perceived deficiencies in the quality of American education [5]. While the objective of increasing educational quality has received broad public and political support, most state-level reform initiatives have been established in haste [I4], and have required substantial increases in funding for implementation [1]. Kirst [14] has argued that policy makers at the state level have formulated reform initiatives that, in fact, have had a negative influence on pupil performance. More importantly, little research has been conducted at the school system level to examine relationships among existing factors that are theorized to be associated with pupil achievement. MacPhail-Wilcox and King [16] have warned that contemporary reform efforts that are directed toward redefined certification requirements, merit pay, uniform teacher qualities, and standardized instructional practices are based on the unwarranted assumptions that they will eliminate the perceived inadequacies in public education. These reform initiatives tacitly assume that teacher attributes are the critical factors associated with pupil performance, and fail to acknowledge that teacher effects vary by student, classroom, and organizational variables. Within this context, Bidwell and Kasarda [3], Butler and Monk [4], and MacPhail-Wilcox and King [I6] have argued that the school may not be the appropriate unit of analysis for examining the effects of schooling on pupil performance. These authors have contended that alterable variables are the crucial elements in the transformation of educational inputs into learning outcomes. Thus, it is suggested that the focus of research must be on the school district rather than the individual pupil, classroom, or school. For legislatures and school boards, the need for information that is based on existing practices in education is vital to the development of sound reform initiatives.