Quality in Education

Rural schools play a vital part of the physical, economic, cultural, and political landscape, so it is imperative that national policymakers understand the unique challenges and opportunities these rural schools face and enact policies that support their success. Education policy must provide rural schools with the tools and conditions necessary to prepare every child to learn and lead. The future of rural communities, and America as a whole, depends on every child’s readiness to sustainably develop his or her community and participate fully in building a prosperous nation.  

While recent investments from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have given a shot in the arm to education, health care, and economic development, it remains to be seen how accessible these funds will be to rural communities and whether they will make the kind of impact necessary to sustain healthy rural communities beyond the two-year stimulus period.

The National Rural Assembly has identified nine pressing issues in the area of rural education:

• No Child Left Behind rarely fits in rural.
• Place-based learning empowers students and enables rural development.
• Healthy rural communities and economies are critical to student success.
• School consolidation hurts students and rural economies.
• Rural schools have difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers, particularly in the current economic climate.
• Technology access moves students and communities forward.
• Equitable funding gives students a fair shot.
• Changing demographics create a sense of urgency to meet the needs of diverse rural students.
• Rural voices must be heard.

These critical issues suggest that rural schools need a range of policy supports in order to rectify their most pressing challenges, capitalize on their best practices, and nurture community conditions which support—instead of complicate—their efforts to educate America’s rural children. Overarching policy priorities include engaging practitioners, stakeholders, and policymakers in discourse about the proper role of the federal government in education; increasing financial support for rural school innovation, research, and collaborative practices; and investing more deeply in rural community development. These priority areas, along with specific recommendations, are outlined below.

The Role of Federal Government in Education

Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, it has become common practice for the federal government to dictate school methods and strategies. For rural schools to succeed, local communities and states should share those responsibilities, while the federal government supports and supplements schools’ capacity to offer an appropriate and adequate education for all children.

Recommendations:

• Revise NCLB to reduce the focus on testing and test preparation and instead give schools the support they need to improve, as promoted by President Obama during his campaign. There must also be support and encouragement for teachers to use place-based curriculum to involve students in civic, economic, and vocational opportunities.
• Change the weighted formulas used in Title I, which disadvantage rural schools (see the Rural School and Community Trust’s recently released report, Why Rural Matters 2009: The Realities of Rural Education Growth, showing that Title I guidelines disadvantage rural schools with the highest percentages of students in poverty).
• Funds should be awarded based on percentages of poverty, not on enrollment of LEAs. Eliminate federal guidelines that lead to school consolidation.
• Create an office of rural education within the Department of Education to ensure that rural school needs are considered in policy and funding criteria, serve as a source for technical assistance to rural schools, and act as a clearinghouse for research and best practices.

Rural School Innovation, Research, and Collaboration

Successful practices and outcomes are occurring in rural schools across the country, though limited opportunities exist to share these best practices because of inadequate investment in rural school research and programs which enable school collaborations. There need to be systems to establish strong partnerships with rural public schools and local or state colleges for the purpose of training, development, and research.

Recommendations:

Support programs like the New York legislature’s Center for Rural Schools at Cornell University as a means of offering support and resources to strengthen rural schools.

• Reauthorize the Rural Teacher Retention Act of 2007 or similar legislation that provides funding for rural districts to create strong practices and incentives for teacher recruitment.
• Increase funding for professional development so teachers can modify instruction for diverse populations of students, including low-income students, those with disabilities, and English language learners. With the quickly changing demographics in rural communities, there exists a sense of urgency for these increases.
• Use the Rural School and Community Trust’s "Rural Schools Innovation Network", which offers technical assistance to the poorest rural school districts in the country, as a model for rural school-to-school networks.
• Expand financial aid programs to enable broader access to higher education by underrepresented groups such as immigrants, veterans, and those re-entering from the criminal justice system.

Rural Community Development

To create the conditions enabling rural student success, the federal government must work harder to alleviate the conditions of poverty that exist in many rural communities by making sound investments in education as well as in health care, housing, economic development, and community development. There is a need for a comprehensive investment framework that builds upon the local assets of communities, invests in schools as multipurpose facilities, and responds to broader community needs.

Recommendations:

• Continue reauthorizing the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, which allows a percentage of revenues from national timber sales to be invested in schools located in counties that host a national forest. Investments are also made for road improvements and forest stewardship in these communities.
• Reauthorize the Full-Service Community Schools Act, which aims to improve the academic achievement of students by providing funding for schools to coordinate social and health services to be offered to students and their families within school facilities.