重点高中能否提高学生的学业成绩——基于F县普通高中的一个断点回归设计研究

Does Key Senior High Schools Improve Students Academic Performance? A Regression Discontinuity Study in County F

Taking advantage of the exogenous influence generated by the method of senior high school admission， this paper examines the effect of key senior high schools on students’ academic achievements in county F using regression discontinuity design. It indicates that， for science students， the total test scores， Chinese test scores and math test scores of key senior high school students are all significantly higher than those of other senior high schools， but the difference between two groups is not large ； and for liberal arts students， the effect of key senior high schools is not significant. It implies that key senior high schools have only a slight positive effect on students’ academic performance. However， the results should be interpreted with caution，because: 1) students with better performance in the High School Entrance Examination may prefer to become science students， so that the difference might be for better-performed students， instead of science students； 2) both the degree of dependence on school resources for different disciplines and the different preference for school resource allocation might result in different effects in different disciplines. Besides ，the effect of key senior high schools is heterogeneous， with a larger effect for girls and for city students in terms of total test scores， while a larger effect for rural students in terms of Chinese test scores and math test scores. Our conclusion is subject to limitations of the special sample as well as specific methods， and need to be further verified with richer data.