Despite skepticism about the viability of an educational investment strategy for rural development, coordination between education and rural employers may be a key to rural economic growth. Interviews with 101 employers in 6 rural counties surrounding Hagerstown, Maryland, as well as a mail survey (95 of the 101 employers responded), examined…

Profiles Clay County (West Virginia) High School, example of U.S. School of Excellence in rural, poverty area. Explains positive role of school principal. Details successful attendance incentives and dropout program. Describes examples of community involvement. (TES)

A cooperative of small, rural Alabama schools is teaching aquaculture in vocational agriculture classes to make science more relevant. Program goals include enhancing student skills through daily work in living laboratories; training teachers who understand life sciences' connection to everyday rural life and are skilled in using living…

Surveys of 158 West Virginia Governor's Honors Academy (GHA) students and 644 seniors in rural West Virginia high schools suggest that, compared to the latter, GHA students are less alienated; are not more eager to leave their community; exhibit stronger modern dispositions, but not weaker rustic dispositions; and are equally satisfied with their…

Describes Woodlands Mountain Institute's leadership program, which helps exceptional West Virginia high school students get into good colleges and serve home communities after finishing college. Describes cases of low-income students assisted by program in college selection and financial aid. Describes colleges' cooperation, peer-counseling…

REAL Enterprises, Inc. (Rural Entrepreneurship through Action Learning) is an academic program that helps students learn the basics of starting and nurturing a new business. West Virginia is 1 of 17 states offering the program with the goal of preparing youth to take advantage of economic opportunities in their own communities. (LP)

This study compares the attitudes of academically gifted rural students with those of their classmates with regard to their communities and their aspirations for a sense of place. Although West Virginia, a largely rural state in Appalachia, is considered by outsiders as a place of deprivation, despair, and backwardness, an aspiration for a sense…

Reviews a book that documents the circumstances surrounding the closure of a small, rural West Virginia high school. The book's strength derives largely from its crossing of disciplinary borders to address social, political, and economic factors that have influenced changing educational values and the trend toward consolidation in rural West…