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text/yi zhuo

the central document no. 1 of 2024 proposed to "implement the action plan for the development and improvement of county general high schools", and listed the development of county general high schools and the revitalization of county middle schools as the focus of current basic education work. for a long time in the past, county middle schools have been extremely important for county education. generally speaking, if there are one or two relatively strong public high schools in a county, and the school's annual college entrance examination can be admitted to key universities such as tsinghua university and peking university with a relatively stable rate, and at the same time have a relatively good first-class pass rate, then the local people will have confidence in the education of the county, and parents will not need to go to other places to choose schools, or even send their children to schools with better education quality in the primary and secondary school stages. county middle schools are the outlets for county education. the county's education expectations and education investment must be "settled" here in the county middle schools. therefore, the key to providing education that satisfies the people is to run county middle schools well.

however, in the past decade, county middle schools in most parts of the country have generally collapsed, and the direct manifestation is that they have been unable to recover in terms of college entrance examination results. not only are they unable to produce students from tsinghua and peking university, but even some county middle schools in some areas cannot even get students into the first-tier universities. when we conducted a survey in a prefecture-level city in the southwest at the end of last year, we learned that, except for urban high schools, the special control pass rate of county middle schools below is generally only 2% to 7%. a survey and statistics of more than 30 county first middle schools in a central province found that only three county middle schools can barely rely on the national special plan to pass the entrance examination for students from tsinghua and peking university, and the rest of the county middle schools are basically in a state of collapse. "it is difficult for county middle schools to produce noble children" has become an objective fact. in addition to the social anxiety about education, the explanation of the collapse of county middle schools requires in-depth structural analysis. based on the survey, there is multiple exploitation of three types of schools behind the current collapse of county middle schools.

one,picking the best students: the first level of exploitation of provincial super high schools

during our research, we found that there are usually several nationally renowned high schools in provincial capitals. they have strong educational resources and are known for their extremely high enrollment rates. every year, the number of students admitted to tsinghua and peking university after the college entrance examination results are released far exceeds that of other high schools in cities. these schools often use the names of the so-called "four famous schools" and "education brands" to promote their educational concepts and advanced models, but behind the bright and beautiful results, they are actually nakedly picking the best students from the cities and counties below and capitalizing on the school model.

currently, most super high schools have obvious organizational characteristics of public-private capital partnership in their operating model, and they have an advantage in selecting top students. from our survey, although super high schools are nominally public schools invested by the government, in actual operation, they generally adopt the form of public-private partnership or private-public assistance. this mixed capital ownership form provides great convenience for super high schools to select the best students: on the one hand, the public capital attribute of super high schools helps them to avoid enrollment restrictions, strengthen school examination management and provide strong incentives for the teaching staff. for example, our survey in eastern and central provinces found that although policies prohibiting cross-district enrollment have been introduced and a province-wide student record management system has been developed, the provincial education department will still make openings for these super high schools or set a so-called "transition period" for enrollment, and grant them special enrollment quotas in the following districts and counties, allowing them to recruit top students and excellent teachers across the province to strengthen their competition results, so as to attract more students to tsinghua university and peking university, and win the provincial college entrance examination competition; on the other hand, the private capital attribute of super high schools helps them to select the best students and recruit students of choice in advance through the establishment of branch schools and joint schools to earn school funds, and support the school headquarters' competition training, strengthening the foundation and cultivating the best, and rewarding top students. for example, we understand that some super high schools will use rewards to attract top students. it is not uncommon for a student to receive 50,000 to 100,000 yuan. in addition, these super high schools are very strong in the five major subject competitions, and the annual market salary of a gold medal competition coach is at least 1 million yuan. during the survey, a principal said: "a student from peking university or tsinghua university costs 200,000 yuan, while a gold medal in a competition costs 2 million yuan." it can be seen that huge investments are required to achieve good results in competitions, which is far beyond the support of local education public finances and must be assisted by capital.

the public-private partnership organizational form of provincial super high schools makes them have obvious capitalization characteristics in terms of school-running model and picking top students. first, super high schools use their public status as key schools to pick top students in the province, enjoy special admission policies, and exploit high-quality students in counties; second, with the huge space for private capital to flexibly run schools and integrate resources, super high schools can quickly realize the reproduction of educational capital, that is, on the one hand, they monopolize high-quality students, teachers and information resources, consolidate their advantages in competitions, strong basic plans and training top students, and form a brand effect; on the other hand, they use private capital to establish a complex branch system, pick up another wave of good students or recruit repeaters in the form of training and admission, and then use the brand of famous schools to open so-called international classes to attract students who choose schools, charge high tuition fees to harvest families of students with middle and lower grades, and transfer tuition income to the main school to continue to support the development of the main school. during the survey, it was found that super high schools with 30 to 50 branches were very common. these branches were either listed, led, or co-run under the nature of trusteeship, thus forming a large-scale education group with complex internal relationships. so far, under the powerful combination of public and private capital, super high schools can completely harvest the top students in the county schools across the province in just over a decade. after becoming famous, they don’t have to bother to recruit students. they only need to defeat the high schools in the districts and counties below, and parents who are anxious about education will flock to send their children to super high schools. this is the first level of exploitation of the collapse of county schools.

2. resource siphoning: the second level of exploitation of prefecture-level high schools

in the past period of time, super high schools not only picked the best students from counties and districts across the province, but also snatched students from surrounding cities and prefectures, which also brought a lot of impact on high schools in cities and prefectures. for example, huanggang, huangshi, xiaogan and tianqianmian areas in hubei province were greatly attracted by high schools in wuhan city, and huzhou area in zhejiang province was greatly affected by high schools in hangzhou city. like county high schools, many prefecture-level high schools have also declined rapidly under the impact of super high schools constantly picking the best students and poaching teachers. in order to resist the impact of super high schools, retain high-quality students and teachers, and ensure college entrance examination results, some prefecture-level city high schools have also begun to imitate the practices of super high schools to pick the best students from the counties and districts under their jurisdiction, and to pool the efforts of the entire city to run a high school. the result is a second level of exploitation of the collapse of county high schools. generally speaking, compared with the provincial capital super high schools, prefecture-level city high schools have the following advantages:

first, prefecture-level city high schools are closer to the counties and cities below. for parents with good family conditions and students with good academic foundation, if they can go to the nearby prefecture-level city high schools, they will have a great chance of getting into the target university. then they don’t have to go to the provincial capital to study. this is not only convenient for taking care of students, but also can save a lot of tuition and living expenses. for example, because high schools in some areas of western hubei are far away from wuhan, more high-quality students are intercepted in local city high schools;

second, the education departments of prefecture-level cities are very familiar with the situation of each high school in their jurisdiction, especially the situation of top students and famous teachers. they are very powerful when using administrative means to make room for the top students in the city's directly affiliated high schools. for example, the annual enrollment plan of a high school in a prefecture-level city in the central region is 900. in this enrollment plan, 50 top students can be recruited from each of the 10 counties below, which means that a total of 500 high-quality students are top students from the counties below. the deputy director of the city's education bureau has served as the principal of a county middle school below. he is very familiar with the source of students in the county junior high schools in the city. during the enrollment period, he would greet the principals of the county middle schools below and ask them not to hide the good students, but to send some of them to the city's high schools. another example is that two famous high schools in a prefecture-level city in the central region enroll about 2,400 students each year, and 70% of the students come from the counties below. it is incredible. there is no reason why the county middle schools will not collapse.

third, the financial strength of prefecture-level cities is relatively strong, and they can concentrate all their efforts on running a high school in the city. under the fierce offensive of super high schools, prefecture-level governments have awakened and want to concentrate educational resources to run high schools in their cities. unlike counties, which have to run their own high schools and at least 3 to 6 ordinary high schools and vocational high schools that require government investment, prefecture-level governments generally only need to run 1 to 2 high schools under the city. in addition, the educational financial capacity of prefecture-level cities is significantly stronger than that of counties. therefore, compared with county-level high schools, prefecture-level governments will support the development of municipal high schools with greater efforts and more means, and the siphoning effect on students and teachers in county high schools will be more obvious. during the survey, it was learned that a prefecture-level city in central china sets aside tens of millions of special funds from the fiscal budget every year to support a high school in the city for talent introduction, improving teacher treatment and performance rewards. many backbone teachers, lesson preparation group leaders and even vice principals in surrounding counties have "resigned" and been poached by this city middle school, and their annual income has more than doubled. in addition, the city government also helped the school to fully resolve the debt of the newly built campus. however, due to the weak local financial resources, the annual debt gap of the county middle school is more than 5 million. a prefecture-level city in the southwest spends 10 million yuan each year on college entrance examination rewards for high schools in the city (including district level). teachers can get up to more than 100,000 yuan, and the enthusiasm of teachers for teaching is fully mobilized. the strong resource investment also makes prefecture-level high schools confident in competing for students. the slogan of two well-known high schools in a prefecture-level city in the central region is "three years of high school and four years of study", which means buying repeaters throughout the city. the highest price for a repeater can be hundreds of thousands, which is really amazing.

because the provincial capital's super high schools recruit students across regions in an unordered manner, monopolize high-quality educational resources, and excel in college entrance examination performance, the prefectural-level high schools that have been impacted have had to imitate the super high schools' operating methods in order to maintain their educational quality. they use their own educational management rights and financial investment advantages to siphon resources and exploit students from the counties below. the super high schoolization of the prefectural-level high school operating model has become the second inducement for the collapse of county high schools.

3. dividing resources: the third level of exploitation of county private high schools

when a county middle school fails to produce college entrance examination results for several consecutive years, and the number of students admitted to peking university and tsinghua university is always "bald", the local people will be dissatisfied with the government's education work and lack confidence in the county's education. the county party committee and government will feel enormous pressure, and the county party secretary will be embarrassed. in order to reverse the decline of high school education and quickly make educational achievements, some county governments will turn their attention to private schools, introducing or supporting private schools to fill the gaps in high school education. however, from the actual effect, this approach is difficult to truly improve the quality of high school education. in fact, due to the further division of the few remaining educational resources, the trend of county middle schools' collapse has continued to be strengthened.

at present, there are two main types of private high schools in counties: one is that after the "double reduction" policy, the enrollment scale of private schools in the compulsory education stage was reduced. in order to survive, some private education capital turned to high school. therefore, there must be good students and college entrance examination scores to support the school's facade to ensure the number of students and operating profits; the other is that after the country has successively issued policies prohibiting cross-regional enrollment in recent years, super high schools and prefecture-level high schools have used capital to bypass policy restrictions and set up branches in various counties and cities. these branches are of various types, some are listed schools, some are schools within schools, some are cooperative schools or private schools, and there are even "cloud classes". because they are public-private partnerships, these branches are generally twelve-year schools or junior high schools. among them, 100 to 200 public places will be opened to avoid various management policies for private education in the compulsory education stage, and at the same time, it is convenient to select good students from primary school or junior high school. the remaining hundreds of places are private schools. the requirements for high school entrance examination scores are not high when enrolling students. the main purpose is to charge high tuition fees to support the training of top students.

the attitude of the county government towards these two types of private schools is also quite different. for the first type of private high schools, because they are temporary transformation, the local government generally does not give them high hopes or too much support, but takes a laissez-faire attitude. during the period of compulsory education, these private schools not only thoroughly impacted the public education system through various school-running strategies, but also intercepted a considerable number of good students to be directly promoted to their own high school departments, which once again divided the students of the county middle schools. for the second type of private high schools, because they are blessed by the halo of famous schools, the local government will give them high hopes and strong support, firmly believing that outsiders are better at chanting sutras, and sincerely invite super high schools to open branches, or at least send a management team to manage their own county middle schools. in the past two years, a famous private education group in an eastern province has opened more than 40 trusteeship schools across the country. the cooperation model is to sign a three-year agreement with the local government, agreeing on the college entrance examination indicators that must be met, such as the number of c9 college admissions or the special control pass rate. the group school sends a management team to the county middle school and provides teaching aids, test papers, lesson plans and other materials. the local government pays at least 1 million "sponsorship fees" every year. if there are particularly good seedlings, they can be sent to the school headquarters for training to compete or to compete in the strong foundation plan of tsinghua and peking university. a famous high school in central china has also opened branches throughout the province. most of them are funded by the district and county governments for hardware, and then the school funds to maintain daily operations and personnel expenses. the most important function of these branches is to intercept good students in the region, and even start screening and training in advance from the junior high school and primary school stages, which is equivalent to picking the best students directly at the doorstep of the county middle school. these super high schools and branches of educational capital have penetrated deep into the hinterland of the county, not only snatching away good students, but also using the brand of famous schools to charge fees to make money, harvesting both ends, and the county middle schools have suffered a third level of exploitation.

four,a county facing internal and external troubles

top students are not leeks. it is almost impossible to grow them again after harvesting them every year.

under the impact of super high schools, municipal high schools and private high schools, the student source basis for the revitalization of county middle schools has completely disappeared. coupled with the loss of high-quality teachers and exclusion from the competition system, the school development space is almost "locked". internal and external troubles have become the situation faced by most county middle schools across the country.

under the influence of the triple exploitation structure, the teaching experience, "three hardships" spirit and management model that the county middle school has relied on for a long time are no longer able to play a role. this is also the core reason why many front-line principals and teachers are confused as to why no matter how much energy and teaching time they put in, they can no longer achieve results. in other words, when the institutional resource structure of the development of county middle schools is destroyed and disintegrated, the mechanisms such as teaching methods and management experience are useless. the final result is that the development of county middle schools falls into a vicious circle, good students and teachers continue to lose, the school can no longer achieve results, parents and society lose more and more confidence in county middle schools, and they want to escape from county education as soon as possible and enter municipal or provincial schools, and the results of county middle schools will not improve.

if county middle schools, which are currently facing internal and external troubles, want to revive again and truly achieve the long-term goal of improving the quality of county general high schools, they must rebuild the institutional resource foundation of the county middle school model and turn county middle schools into a stable education level. in other words, they must completely block the loopholes of provincial and municipal schools picking the best from the county middle schools below, dismember the so-called "education groups" of super middle schools, and return to the basic livelihood attributes of education. only when county middle schools are revitalized can education be a real way out for most children in counties and towns.