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This report focuses on the status of rural education and is intended to provide information to education researchers, policymakers at the federal and state levels, as well as others concerned about issues in rural education. Specifically, the goal is to increase federal policymakers' attention to rural education problems, promote improvements in rural schools, and stimulate further research on rural education. This report documents how rural conditions are sufficiently different from urban ones to warrant being examined independently, and it endorses the hypothesis that a single set of public policies may not adequately address educational issues in rural versus urban settings. National data, mainly from surveys by the National Center for Education Statistics, are synthesized covering the following topics: (1) economic and demographic context of rural education; (2) location and characteristics of rural schools and school districts; (3) relationship between the rural school and its community; (4) policies and programs benefiting rural education; (5) profiles of educators in rural schools; (6) effects of education reform in rural schools; (7) public school finance policies and practices affecting rural schools; (8) assessment of student performance in rural schools; (9) education and work experiences of rural youth; and (10) the future of rural education. The report contains numerous data tables and a section describing statistical data sources and methodology. (LP)
This digest examines the problem of upgrading rural school facilities, focusing on specific rural issues, conditions that interfere with teaching and learning, and new funding approaches. Almost half of U.S. public schools are in rural areas and small towns. Close rural school-community relationships may make it easier to make decisions, communicate with the community, and raise funds for facilities improvement. On the other hand, many rural districts have financial disadvantages: low enrollments, which diminish available construction money; lower property values, which lower the potential to borrow money; and high poverty rates. About half of rural and small-town schools report at least one facility problem. In addition to deterioration because of age, many rural schools must cope with new requirements for teaching and learning. These include laboratory classrooms, flexible instruction areas, multimedia centers, adequate space to accommodate parent involvement and an array of social and health services, electrical wiring and conduits for computers and other technology, accommodations for special needs students, and mandated removal of hazardous building materials. Fixing these problems will be costly, and despite increased school construction nationwide, rural districts have not kept up with urban areas. In 1997, Congress authorized Qualified Zone Academy Bonds to make school renovation funding more accessible to poor school districts. (Contains 18 references.) (SV).
While the condition of rural school facilities varies across the country, most rural school districts face similar issues as they consider new facility construction, renovations, or additions: How to gain public support for funding How to make the best us
Indifference has not always characterized American attitudes toward rural children, nor has neglect always been the cornerstone of state and federal policy toward rural education. Indeed, for nearly a century there was an avid and influential—though ultimately ineffective—rural school reform movement in the United States. But in recent years, rural education has become a "skeleton in the closet" of the education profession. More than 14 million children attend rural schools that receive only minuscule amounts of the nation s financial resources and professional attention. The authors of this book carefully analyze the beliefs, assumptions, policies, and practices that have shaped and continue to shape education in rural America, concluding that conventional wisdom in rural education has proved to be considerably more conventional than wise. They offer pragmatic suggestions for changes in rural schools, in educational policy, and in programs designed for rural communities. As Robert Coles tells us in his Foreword to the book, they "give us clear, strong, uncluttered prose—a good sign that they are able to offer sensible, honest, unpretentious suggestions and useful ideas. They give us. . .a social history that enables perspective . . . and [they give us] practical, well-argued suggestions for a public policy both humane and capable of realization for our rural areas."