In this descriptive and comparative study, we present results highlighting the complexity and scope of the challenges facing rural districts as they navigate the changing demographics of the students and families they serve. Rapid increases in the number and concentration of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students in rural areas…

Many reports on rural education give little attention to digital learning. At most, they tend to note either infrastructure needs or the potential of remote course access, with little focus on instruction, outcomes, or exemplars. This report intends to begin correcting that imbalance by connecting the dots between rural regions, rural education,…

In American popular culture, the word "rural" invokes images of sunny farms and little red schoolhouses--while "urban" means drugs, poverty, and crime. But those who know the reality of both worlds will say that rural schools face many of the same challenges as their urban counterparts. The problems of rural schools are often…

Jodi Fletcher is a teacher on special assignment in curriculum instruction and assessment for Falcon School District 49 in Colorado. Serving about 12,500 students across 16 schools, the district encompasses the northeastern portion of Colorado Springs and the rural area of Falcon. About 30 percent of students in the district are from military…

The teaching of mathematics, which arguably is so abstract as to transcend place and community and even culture (according at least to a Platonic view of mathematics), will seem to some observers particularly ill-suited to instruction in place- or community- or culture-based approaches. Nevertheless, current thinking in mathematics education,…

In 2002-2003, 27% (12.5 million) of public school students attended school in communities of fewer than 25,000 and 19% (8.8 million) attended school in smaller communities of fewer than 2,500. In this report, the authors focus on the schools in those smaller communities, the most rural schools in America. They frame the report around 22…

PACERS Small Schools Cooperative, a 29-school cooperative in rural Alabama, operates an innovative program in which student projects both serve the community and preserve community traditions. Describes how information technology enables the advantages of small schools to flower. Discusses addressing policies and mindsets that hinder development…

This book describes the experience of a young and inexperienced teacher during 1926 in rural Marengo County, Alabama. Susie Powers Tompkins accepted her first teaching assignment to earn money to continue college after her freshman year at Alabama College. However, for Tompkins the rewards of teaching went far beyond just earning money. She found…

The Hale County (Alabama) school system and the University of Alabama formed a long-range collaborative relationship targeted at meeting staffing shortages and improving science instruction in the rural county. Statistically significant gains were achieved in the science teachers' mastery of content, teaching methodology, and attitudes toward…