Much of the Northwest Region (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington) is rural in nature. A characteristic of the extractive economies such as timber, agriculture, mining, and fisheries is that they are generally located in small communities isolated by distances. While schools in these communities face the same challenges as those in…

Reports on a 1983-84 nationwide descriptive study of K-12 and one-12 rural school districts enrolling 300 students or less done to provide educators with needed information on the status of the very small school district. Highlights findings on rural districts, superintendents, teachers, student performance, and school programs. (BRR)

Reviews studies of cognitive development of high school students in small rural schools. Finds that while research clearly shows that students in small rural schools may not be as intellectually developed as students in large schools, little research has been done to identify possible causes for this difference. (BRR)

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…

Across the nation, more than 2.2 million children attend 2,750 rural school districts that suffer from chronic, severe poverty. The National Rural Small Schools Task Force oversees nine regional educational laboratories as they identify and develop promising educational practices for rural, small schools. One laboratory developed a data base…

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…

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…

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)

Academic and social performance of 204 high school students who had attended one-teacher rural elementary schools in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Montana was investigated to determine if small school students were disadvantaged in a larger high school setting. Data gathered by questionnaires from students, school administrators, and counselors…

Following inquiry into small elementary school evaluation processes, a system of evaluation was developed which proposes to standardize and make more efficient already existing forms of evaluation, improve communication among school staff on matters of education and evaluation, and insure that all critical matters of schooling are openly reviewed…

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…

Technological delivery systems currently available or in use are examined for adaptability by rural schools, especially high schools faced with increasing demands to expand curriculum. This report focuses on the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory's (McREL's) service area of Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South…

Questionnaires completed by 374 teachers were used to determine differences in the instructional and noninstructional responsibilities of elementary teachers in very small, small, and medium school districts in Montana. Questions about instructional duties related to number of courses and grade levels taught, pupil/teacher ratio, teacher role in…

Begun in 1978 to provide Queensland's South-West and Central Priority Country schools with a comprehensive maintenance and repair service for most audio-visual equipment, the Technical Maintenance Officer Service (TMO) serves 76 schools with total enrollment exceeding 13,000 pupils dispersed over a 469,000 square kilometer area. Two trained…