Yi Xianrong: Rectify the chaos in the school district, and the illness is like a silk

Source: Global Times

Generally speaking, school district housing refers to the scarcity of school area real estate, can be good or high-quality primary and secondary school community housing prices are often more than 20% higher than the average community housing prices, and sometimes even appear "sky-high school district housing". For example, at the beginning of this year, a 44-square-meter school district house in Futian District, Shenzhen, was speculated to a sky-high price, with a transaction of up to 14.2 million yuan, and the unit price per square meter exceeded 320,000 yuan. Moreover, these school district houses are generally housing with long age, poor supporting facilities, and poor living experience.

Infographic: Real estate. China News Service reporter Yang Bo photographed

In response to this strange phenomenon, the Ministry of Education issued new regulations clearly pointing out that in order to solve the imbalance in education in individual regions of China, several enrollment methods such as "random allocation", "one household to one degree" and "multi-campus zoning" will be adopted. According to incomplete statistics, since 2021, 13 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Xi'an, Xiamen, Chengdu, Dalian, Nanjing, Hefei, Taiyuan, and Wenzhou have made heavy efforts to rectify the chaos in school districts. Recently, the "Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Social Construction Regulations (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)" has also attracted attention for public comments, which clearly proposes to promote the enrollment of university districts and establish a teacher exchange system for compulsory education schools. According to media analysis, Shenzhen's two major cruel moves against the chaos of school district housing will make the so-called school district housing disappear forever.

Will school district housing disappear forever? The author believes that the disappearance of school district housing is a good thing, which can alleviate the anxiety of the people trapped by it and return education and housing to the standard. However, it should also be noted that the school district will most likely be a slow exit process.

According to the current domestic general interpretation, the main reason for the problem of school district housing is the uneven distribution of urban educational resources and the school district housing has become a derivative of housing.

From a worldwide perspective, whether it is a city with a relatively long history or a newly established emerging city, the uneven distribution of urban education resources is a very common phenomenon. For example, in Toronto, Canada, where the distribution of educational resources is more uneven than in Beijing and Shanghai, many good schools with centuries-old traditions are often several schools gathered together, and the region is very concentrated. According to the statistics of different institutions and platforms, the average premium for a house in the British school district is about 15%-20%, and in some areas it will exceed 30%. It is only due to different national conditions and policies that the social attention and impact of this phenomenon are different.

It is often said in the industry that every time education fairness and balance are further advanced, the school district effect is weakened. The key to eradicating the housing chaos in school districts lies in the equalization of compulsory education resources. At present, the two tools used in various places are university districts or multi-school zoning and teacher rotation system. The so-called university district or multi-school slice system means that students no longer correspond to a single school registration when applying for admission, but multi-school slices, which collate high-quality schools with ordinary schools and cut off the connection between school district housing and directly promoted high-quality schools. The teacher rotation system is a common means of achieving a balance of educational resources, which has been tested by the education system of many countries. For example, both Japan and South Korea have adopted a mandatory teacher rotation system, especially in Japan, which is also considered to be an important reason for the lack of school district housing in Japan.

Whether it is the university district system or the teacher rotation system, it can be said that it is an effective tool that has been tested in practice, but the ultimate impact on whether it is to stop the boiling of the soup or to draw from the bottom of the pot depends on the degree of implementation in practice. Taking university districts and multi-school divisions as an example, if we cannot adjust the allocation of compulsory education resources, increase investment in weak schools, and improve the conditions for weak schools, the result will be that the price of housing in the school districts around high-quality schools may decline, the prices of houses around weak schools will increase, the differences between regions will still be difficult to eliminate, the strong areas will still be strong, and the weak areas will still be weak.

Of course, there is another important problem with the school district housing phenomenon is that many people regard school district housing as a derivative of housing, that is, school district housing is a futures investment product. If housing becomes a complete consumer product instead of an investment, school district housing will soon disappear. The government can curb the high housing prices through the housing tax system, such as the introduction of progressive housing income tax, or the introduction of progressive property taxes, so that speculators in school districts dare not hold them. However, at present, China's housing market investment has not completely transformed from a housing market dominated by investment speculation to a consumption-led housing market, and the eradication of housing chaos in school districts in the future depends on the continuous implementation of the "housing and not speculation" policy.

If the school district housing chaos is regarded as a disease in development, the so-called "disease goes like a silk", we may have to use a longer time dimension to look at this problem, not too anxious. (The writer is a professor at the School of Economics, Qingdao University)