This report provides background information on Forest Service (FS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) revenue-based payments and a brief overview of a related payment program--the Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program. Because the revenue-based, Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (SRS), and PILT payments interact…

In the Fall of 2010, the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) approached Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) to commission a report of system-wide performance for their first full school year of testing as part of the BIE-NWEA Project. Even with only a single year of testing data, some patterns were identified and they are listed in this report.…

In American popular culture, the word "rural" invokes images of sunny farms and little red school-houses--while "urban" means drugs, poverty, and crime. But rural schools face many of the same challenges as their urban counterparts. The problems of rural schools are often invisible to the public and policy makers. The solutions…

Educational leadership has been the focus of many studies; however, leadership does not occur in a vacuum. Understanding the context in which it occurs will in turn help to explain the phenomenon itself. Rural communities in the United States have many differences when compared to urban and suburban areas. Twenty-eight percent of schools in the…

Things are not going so well in small-town America. While the so-called "Great Recession" of the moment has focused considerable attention on the travails of Main Street and Middle America, the truth is that the troubles that plague such places have been a long time in the making. For the past 30 years, nonmetropolitan counties and the…

Public education is the cornerstone of democracy and is absolutely fundamental to a democratic, civil and prosperous society. Beyond the boundaries of the United States, other countries are working to provide quality education to their children through civil society institutions. In particular, there are three extraordinary organizations in Peru,…

In 2006, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a new classification system to make the reporting of locale data consistent across its various surveys and to be more precise in its classification of rural areas. This report brings together data from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and Census surveys and…

The following is an historically-based analysis of a new phenomenon affecting rural schools and communities: animal confinement operations. A contrast is made between "enclosure" as it unfolded in England a few centuries ago and the way animal concentration units constitute a second, "modern" form of enclosure today. In both…

The consolidation of rural schools in the United States has been a controversial topic for policy-makers, school administrators, and rural communities since the 1800s. At issue in the consolidation movement have been concerns of efficiency, economics, student achievement, school size, and community identity. Throughout the history of schooling in…

Public-private partnerships in education exist in various forms around the world, in both developed and developing countries. Despite this, and despite the importance of human capital for economic growth, systematic analysis has been limited and scattered, with most scholarly attention going to initiatives in the United States. This volume helps…

Introducing the concept of phenomenology (concern with consciousness, objects of consciousness, possibilities, and a return to "things") supported by ethnomethodology as a viable approach to rural sociology, this paper presents: (1) a brief review of selected articles discussing the conceptualization of "rural"; (2) certain…

Although violence and substance use are usually considered urban problems, rates of violence and substance use in rural areas are catching up to urban rates. This collection of six articles explores violence and substance use in rural America, the relationship between the two, the factors contributing to these problems, and effective preventive…

The consolidation of rural schools in the United States has been a controversial topic for policy-makers, school administrators, and rural communities since the 1800s. Issues in the consolidation movement have been concerns of efficiency, economics, student achievement, school size, and community identity. Throughout the history of schooling in…

This proceedings of a conference held in May 2000 at Malaspina University-College (British Columbia) contains approximately 63 conference papers, abstracts of papers, and keynote speeches. The conference examined issues affecting rural communities, with major themes being rural education, health, human services, families, and the sustainability of…

One-third of all U.S. school children attend school in rural settings. Rural schools are much poorer than urban America, with most of the poorest counties in the United States located in rural areas. Equity is a concern not only in terms of race, class, gender, disability, and sexual orientation, but also in terms of being geographically located…