As Internet technology encroached on the public school classroom about a decade ago, Kim Ross, superintendent of the Houston School District in Houston, Minnesota, saw an opportunity. At first, he and his administrative team simply wanted to offer students in the district of 1,300 access to more classes via the web than what a district that size…

Assisted by a sophisticated telecommunications system, 90 small, rural Minnesota schools collaborated to influence state legislation regarding funding equity and other issues. Small-school strategies for building political activism include seizing available opportunities, developing leadership capacity, involving political constituents,…

Minnesota has enacted legislation and implemented cooperative services to meet student needs. Legislation allows two or more districts to cooperate on programs and services while maintaining local boards and independent school district status. Communicasting, combining elements of communication and broadcasting, enables school districts to share…

This report examines educational expenditures for all Minnesota public schools for the 1997-98 school year and finds that the cost of educating children in smaller schools was higher than in larger schools. Empirical evidence is presented to demonstrate that a more precise relationship between enrollment and expenditures is log-linear, rather than…

This policy brief summarizes the full report [ED468840], which describes a study that evaluated whether smaller school districts, as a result of their higher costs per pupil, experienced greater hardship in the areas of infrastructure, resources, and staffing. The policy brief reports on the results of a survey that was administered to the…

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…

To help in providing high quality school programs in rural communities which do not generate adequate revenue dollars, a model of sharing and pairing services between schools is being used in southeastern Minnesota. The cooperation model, which includes four small districts, consists of eight or nine basic programs which are coordinated by a…

After summarizing the current literature regarding potential school organizational structures and practices, this report outlined the process that was developed and utilized by four small rural school districts in southern Minnesota in 1980. Emphasis was on maintaining local school districts which cooperated with other schools through an…

Designated as Phase I of a larger follow-up study of high school graduates, the report presented a comparison of students' scores on the Minnesota Scholastic Aptitude Test (MSAT) by school size. The population for the study consisted of all high school juniors attending public high schools in Minnesota who had taken the MSAT during the 1966-67…

Describes the background, procedure, analysis, and results of a survey of 348 K-12 teachers in western Minnesota to identify indicators of teacher burnout such as stress and job-related unhappiness among respondents. Notes widespread dissatisfaction with teaching in small rural communities, especially among men and among teachers aged 41-50. (SB)

The benefits of regional cooperation among small rural school districts are stressed in this brief description of the Educational Cooperative Service Unit (ECSU) currently serving 63,800 students in 104 member districts. A section on historical background traces the ECSU's forerunners, e.g., an educational media center established in 1965, the…

The effects of declining enrollment on one small town school district in Minnesota are examined in this case study, published in conjunction with a planning manual on enrollment decline. This district, located in a predominantly agricultural, rural area, was forced to reduce its staff, close two elementary schools, and reorganize its educational…

The rural school district examined in this case study is the smallest of the five covered in this series, which is published in conjuction with a planning manual on declining enrollment. The principal issue in this Minnesota district is simply survival. Its initially small enrollment has shrunk even further, and enrollment projections indicate…

Prepared for the state legislature, this document is intended to supply practical information to help law makers and educators better understand the planning processes and cooperative efforts that currently exist among the public schools in the 18 counties of southwest and central Minnesota. Parts One and Three describe the planning process that…

The State of Minnesota funds its public schools primarily through a funding formula that provides school districts the same amount of revenue per pupil regardless of the size of their enrollment. An earlier study demonstrated that larger school districts incur less cost per pupil due to increased efficiency derived from economies of scale. This…