Each year in the United States, school district officials spend significant time and effort evaluating teacher effectiveness. Teacher evaluation procedures have evolved through the years from a process by which local officials monitored teacher practices to assure conformity to one in which teachers and administrators work collaboratively using…

Teacher recruitment and retention factors were identified in the smallest public school districts in Illinois. Findings were compared to a previous study of Montana rural teacher recruitment and retention conducted by Davis (2002). A quantitative survey instrument was administered to teachers employed in the 24 smallest Illinois school districts.…

This study positioned the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002 as a reified colonizing entity, inscribing its hegemonic authority upon the professional identity and work of school principals within their school communities of practice. Pressure on educators and students intensifies each year as the benchmark for Adequate Yearly Progress…

Describes cooperative budget-stretching ventures of two small school districts in rural Illinois. The Bluffs and Triopia K-12 districts have joint programs in staff development; social work and guidance services; speech therapy; purchasing; and vocational, special, and gifted education. (MLH)

All dropouts from Hiawatha High School (Kirkland, Illinois) in the last 3 years were surveyed to determine why they dropped out and what the school could do to deter students from dropping out. Nationally, dropping out is related to poverty, lack of parental support, drug abuse, learning disabilities, and a history of poor school performance.…

In May of 1977, each public school district and regional superintendent in the 31 southernmost counties of Illinois (principally rural, small schools) was sent a number of the Needs Assessment Instruments. The 295 returned instruments included responses from the following elementary and secondary personnel: teachers (N=86); principals (N=85);…

A curriculum emphasizing "basics" and a program of extracurricular activities encouraging individual experimentation, exploration, and growth are factors contributing to the excellence of this small, rural junior-senior high school with an enrollment of 256 in Triopia, Illinois. The school's faculty, curriculum, athletic program, and…

Uses responses of 77 teachers from eight Illinois rural high schools to 36-item survey to assess amount of time students devote to homework; existence of school homework policy; purpose and type of homework assignments; teacher review, feedback, and grading of homework; and value and significance of assigning homework. (NEC)

A survey of representative schools in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois showed that most small and rural schools house middle-level students in buildings primarily designed for elementary or high school students. Middle level students often receive an inappropriate educational program that is not taught by teachers trained to understand and…

School finance is basic to understanding and improving the condition of rural education. Information necessary for financial planning and policy development at the state and local levels is stored in large computer readable data bases and needs to be accessed. Pertinent data elements need to be extracted from the data base and relationships among…

The research question posed in this study is as follows: How are small, rural school districts different from other school districts? The study involved analysis of data from 52 unit (K-12) school districts in a 9-county region of East Central Illinois. Data were collected from the 1986 school district report cards and from Illinois State Board of…

This paper contests a 1985 report by the Illinois State Board of Education, which asserted that small schools are inferior and inefficient, that student achievement is significantly related to school size, and that a high school enrollment of 500-1200 students is necessary for a broad choice of academic courses and extracurricular activities. It…

The English curriculum for grades 10-12 at Kansas High School, a small rural school in Eastern Illinois, consists of mini-courses with an enrollment of 7-20 students. Students must pass the ninth grade English course before they are permitted to register for mini-courses; they are required to take English as sophomores and juniors. During this…

The book takes a nostalgic look at one-room schools in the United States Midwest, especially in Illinois, and traces their history from about 1825 to the present. Three chapters present the development of the one-room school from 1825 to the Civil War, from after the Civil War to around 1920, and from 1920 through the Depression and the Second…

School finance is basic to understanding and improving the condition of rural education. The purpose of this study was to: (1) determine the relationship between educational spending and component property wealth in the rural schools of Illinois; (2) examine potential trends in component property wealth in Illinois; and (3) identify and facilitate…