Gives 1986 National Rural and Small Schools Consortium Conference definitions for rural school district, small school district, and remote/isolated school, providing common terms for communicating with legislators, federal/state policymakers, and researchers. Emphasizes "ruralness" as a continuum affected by the interaction of…

Traces decline of one-room schools from 24,000 in 1959 to about 840 today. Reports findings from 1984 survey of 643 surviving one-room schools in Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota, California, and Wyoming. Includes data on enrollments, teacher qualifications and responsibilities, student achievement, and school facilities/equipment. (NEC)

Administrative changes were tabulated for 275 rural Kansas school districts with K-12 operations. Data covering a six-year period showed high school principals changing most frequently, followed by middle/junior high school principals, high school assistant principals, and elementary principals. Central office personnel and superintendents…

Recent college graduates (N=162), teaching in schools of 600 or fewer students, rated the importance--to success in teaching--of 45 areas of college studies. Only two areas were rated below the mid-point on the scale of importance. Oral communications, discipline, classroom management, teaching major specialty, and motivating students were rated…

Oral history plays a vital role in accurate preservation of the rural school experience and the actual restoration of some of the country's 212,000 one-room school buildings. Oral histories provide valuable, first-hand information on who taught in and who attended one-room schools, what the curriculum included, what the building looked like, and…

Only nine of 306 public, four-year colleges/universities reported teacher training course(s) devoted solely to study of rural/small schools. Most of the 87 including rural education as part of curriculum did so only as special topic of general course. Only 93 of 306 institutions reported faculty pursuing rural education interests. (NEC)

Superintendents, principals, and teachers from a statistical sample of small schools throughout the United States completed a needs assessment questionnaire. Concerns seemed less related to curriculum and academics and more related to teacher and student attitude, motivation, and general well-being. Significant differences were found between the…

Of 105 different course offerings, 36 percent were provided at significantly higher frequencies in large high schools whereas only 2 percent were offered at significantly higher frequencies in small schools. Significant differences were noted in all foreign language and advanced placement courses surveyed and in almost one-half of…

This study assessed the second year of a 5-year project--the Carroll Instructional Television Consortium--which uses two-way interactive cable television (both audio and video) as an alternative method of delivering courses in four small rural high schools in Illinois. Specific evaluation questions investigated the instructional effectiveness of…

Using the Biomedical Sciences Preparatory Program (BioPrep) for illustration, this paper discusses an approach to educational improvement through the development of curriculum that emphasizes experiential learning and the involvement of students in real-life problems. Opening sections describe BioPrep, a program designed to prepare rural high…

A survey of rural school administrators and college education faculty assessed attitudes toward educating the disabled and opinions about characteristics of effective rural education. Results documented a knowledge and attitude gap between rural and college educators. Both groups were unaware of issues identified in the research literature on…

Reports findings of survey of access to, attitudes towards, and knowledge about computers among 262 rural and 2,065 urban secondary students and 37 rural and 665 urban elementary/secondary educators. Shows rural students had more positive attitudes toward computers and greater access to computers. (NEC)

Sums up the current status of rural education research, offers explanations for the present situation, and argues for two essential steps in developing a rural research and development agenda: adoption of overarching research paradigms to guide future inquiry and consensus concerning the substantive issues to be studied. (JHZ)

Rural education may be the beneficiary of the current national focus on educational reform since concerns have centered on improving education for all students regardless of where they live, a direction not emphasized in most previous reform movements. The reforms bring challenges relating to teacher certification, curriculum, facilities, student…

An evaluative questionnaire completed by 30 high school principals and 159 high school students who used the TI-IN Network demonstrated the advantages of interactive satellite television instruction for rural and small schools. The study found that a large number of subscribers to TI-IN were small rural high schools whose principals stated that…