In this commentary, we revisit "NCLB and the Demand for Highly Qualified Teachers: Challenges and Solutions for Rural Schools," an article we published in this journal in 2005. We consider the predictions we made then about the impact of the Highly Qualified Teacher mandate on special education teacher (SET) shortages in rural states and…

Parents of Cherokee children with disabilities encounter educational agencies from their child's birth to adulthood. Living rurally within the Cherokee Nation's jurisdictional boundaries, these indigenous families engage with a myriad of special education agencies and subsequent policies. This qualitative study explores parental involvement with…

Sections 9302 and 9303 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) provide to States the option of applying for and reporting on multiple ESEA programs through a single consolidated application and report. Although a central, practical purpose of the Consolidated State Application…

The purpose of this paper is to review professional literature to identify barriers for school success for students with disabilities in rural communities and to provide ways to breakthrough these barriers. The author suggests a new, powerful and practical way to make rural education a leader in the nation: Get ahead, Get technology! Table 1…

Adequate yearly progress (AYP) on No Child Left Behind criteria was examined for a randomly selected sample of districts that qualify for the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP). The sample involved 10% of districts that were eligible for the Small Rural Schools Achievement (SRSA) program and 10% that were eligible for the Rural and…