The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Get the Picture?! in improving the overall college/career readiness of 900 students with disabilities in each of the nine participating treatment high schools in nine rural, high poverty Kentucky school districts after four years of implementation. This quasi-experimental study…

Rural poverty rises to higher levels than poverty in urban and suburban areas, and rural communities and their schools face greater isolation, which means that families must travel farther than their urban and suburban counterparts to access available services and learning opportunities. Elaine Weiss describes two rural communities, one in…

State and local education agencies across the country face challenges related to understanding and managing their teaching staff to best help students learn. Statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDSs) offer valuable information about teacher labor markets that can be used to analyze supply and demand, inform budget and staffing decisions, and…

Kentucky is a poor, relatively rural state that contrasts greatly with the relatively urban and wealthy states typically the subject of education studies employing large-scale administrative data. For this reason, Kentucky's experience of major school finance and curricular reform is highly salient for understanding teacher labor market dynamics.…

This monograph offers an in-depth look at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Rural Systemic Initiative (RSI) efforts, an investment of more than $140 million to reform mathematics and science programs in rural K-12 public education and tribal education. The authors seek to promote a foundation of contextual understanding for improving public…

As a follow-up to a 2007 Edvantia, Inc. report entitled "A Legacy of Leadership and Lessons Learned: Results of the Rural Systemic Initiatives for Improving Mathematics and Science Education," (ED531892) Edvantia, Inc. sought and received support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to hold a forum in the nation's capital that…

This report pays tribute to the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Rural Systemic Initiatives (RSIs), an investment of more than $140 million to improve mathematics and science education in some of rural America's most impoverished communities. The report illustrates the impact of NSF's RSI program on a national scale. Each RSI planned a project…

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…

In nongraded, multi-age classrooms, children have the opportunity to learn a great deal from their more proficient classmates. Children in multi-age, nongraded programs often learn that children differ, and they learn to assist each other in productive ways. The organizational scheme has the potential to remove much of the competition of…

Data from 1961, 1971, and 1973 surveys of households and community "knowledgeables" focused on the subjective assesssments of the quality of life (QOL) of residents of Harlan, Perry, Whitley, and Wolfe counties in Eastern Kentucky, and assessed policy implications. Overall, residents assessed their counties favorably. They rated wages…