| Article ID: | iaor19992764 |
| Country: | United States |
| Volume: | 10 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Start Page Number: | 513 |
| End Page Number: | 526 |
| Publication Date: | Jan 1998 |
| Journal: | Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management |
| Authors: | Garner C. William |
| Keywords: | organization, education, statistics: inference |
Can school districts become too large whereby their size exceeds their point of efficiency? To investigate this question, all K-12 school districts in New Jersey were divided into three groups based on student body size. In a comparison of six average cost measures, larger districts were found to be more efficient on only one of the six measures. A more optimum size for school districts appeared to be in moderate sized districts. The theoretical grounds for this investigation regarded the suggested effects of vertical and horizontal decentralization.