This paper presents a qualitative pilot study program evaluation of the Leadership Initiative for Strategic (Bilingual) Teacher Acquisition (LISTA) program in a rural region of Texas. The LISTA program aimed to empower bilingual leaders in education by addressing the limited availability of leadership coaching, particularly tailored to recognize…

Coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting global health crisis, George Floyd's murder was broadcast on social media and popular news (The Marshall Project, 2021). While COVID-19 reports demonstrated the ways Communities of Color and rural communities were disproportionately disadvantaged in the U.S. healthcare system (Artiga et al.,…

Background/Context: There is a growing concern about the ways in which geography affects the educational opportunity for America's rural youth. Most research on this population has assumed that rural America is primarily White and that rural college access is stratified by an individual's ability to complete the application process. Such…

To understand the social experiences of rural teachers recruited by cohort-based alternative pathway programs in the United States, I interviewed 17 rural teachers recruited by Teach For America (TFA). While many new rural teachers experience social isolation early in their careers when teaching in communities in which they did not grow up, these…

National- and state-level education policies are evolving to address teacher shortages that are pervasive across the United States and are particularly problematic in rural special education. In this article, we describe a policy we call "endorsement by exam" in which teachers certified in one subject area can become certified in other…

Music teachers in urban, suburban, and rural communities face a multitude of challenges and opportunities. To identify and examine specific experiences that may be unique to rural general music teachers, we recruited six teacher-participants to complete a 5-week online professional development (PD) course for this exploratory study. We created a…

Educators who understand the benefits to children of expanding their exposure to arts often have to find innovative ways to bring arts education to children who otherwise would not be exposed to quality and inspiring arts experiences.

The purpose of the current study was to examine barriers, if any, reported by special education directors to providing extended school year (ESY) services. Results indicate four barriers to providing ESY services listed in order of importance by special education directors: difficulty in finding qualified personnel to work over the summer,…

Transition planning requires quality vocational and transition assessment tailored to the student's needs, strengths, preferences and interests. Limited research is currently available that addresses assessment types and use of results that rural practitioners utilize to aid in transition planning for students with intellectual disabilities (ID).…

Rural entrepreneurship education programs may be a great tool for enhancing rural livelihoods and reducing rural outmigration. Entrepreneurship has received attention in school based agricultural education, primarily through implementation of Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) programs. Very little research has looked at the teaching of…

In this article, the author examines the growth of the current strain of fundamentalism that is influencing rural schools in the United States, and how it is, according to him, creating a self-sustaining pipeline of fundamentalists into positions of power. The author details the type of anti-public and anti-democratic education being expressed…

In this descriptive and comparative study, we present results highlighting the complexity and scope of the challenges facing rural districts as they navigate the changing demographics of the students and families they serve. Rapid increases in the number and concentration of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students in rural areas…

Definitions of rurality in education research are inconsistent, making generalization across studies difficult at best. We review published research in rural education between 2005 and 2015 (n = 17) and characterize the way each defined rural. A common technique for classifying rural schools is the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES)…

In American popular culture, the word "rural" invokes images of sunny farms and little red schoolhouses--while "urban" means drugs, poverty, and crime. But those who know the reality of both worlds will say that rural schools face many of the same challenges as their urban counterparts. The problems of rural schools are often…

Both supporters and critics of Texas' Top 10 Percent law have been surprised at its popularity, but some UT officials and legislators would like to see the program scaled back. As a Texas state legislator, Jim McReynolds, D-Lufkin, knows a thing or two about influencing the voting positions of his colleagues. This past spring, when Texas House…