This paper summarizes a preferred design of organizational effectiveness studies of small rural school districts. The preferred design consists of five major and mostly sequential steps: (1) considering a large number of complex policy questions associated with the issue of organizational effectiveness efforts; (2) deciding on the technical issue…

There is not any one thing or any one group that can solve all the problems involved in staffing rural and small schools. It is quite common to find a bimodel distribution of teaching faculty in rural and small schools--those with less than 3 years and those with more than 10 years of experience. It could be inferred that either recruitment…

Presents some of the arguments and reviews the research on small school districts. Based on experiences in Indiana, contends that consolidated school superiority is exaggerated. With proper planning and innovation, small schools can effectively share human, material, and financial resources. Eighteen references are provided. (MLF)

Discusses the strengths and weaknesses of rural education and calls for the establishment of a rural education network that would disseminate information about exemplary programs dealing with problems unique to rural schools. (FL)

Provides a personal account of the author's grade school years in the Independence School in Colorado. (AH)

Describes the Appalachian Regional Commission's work with regard to vocational education in the region, the economic investment, and the new economic freedom that education is bringing to its residents. (JOW)

Presents an interview with two volunteers who set up and ran a school from scratch located in the mountains of Guatemala. Notes that after three months, the government was convinced to send at least one teacher. (RS)

Describes the challenges and joys of teaching English at Oak Hill School in the remote rural community of Elmer, Louisiana. (SR)

Examines characteristics of small rural schools that contribute to school effectiveness. Discusses program implementation, school climate, teacher morale, teacher cooperation, the work ethic, parent involvement, student involvement, and relationships among teachers, administrators, parents, students, and the community. (SV)

Nation-building, partly through systems of schooling, has done more to debase than improve rural circumstances. Rural education needs a logic of improvement that differs from that applied so far. Some sources are suggested that might help in the development of real rural educational improvement. (SLD)

This paper contextualizes rural education as a marginalized space within the spectrum of American education, describing what constitutes rural in a variety of contexts, summarizing current issues in rural education, and critiquing how mainstream construction of the purposes and instrumentalities of the one best system sustains rural marginality,…

The challenges in developing discursive classrooms in high-poverty, rural schools motivate less verbal students to communicate. Students tend to resist mathematics education reforms and classroom discourses.

In this article, the author relates his experience of being attacked for teaching American history at a rural school in north Alabama using a critical, more inclusive approach to American history and social studies. He describes how he struggled with the notion of perspective in teaching primary documents, particularly papers written by those not…

The most practical and productive response to how to deal with hard times seems to be coming from those rural schools which are renewing and energizing their partnership with business and the community. There are three keys to this cooperation: on all sides leaders specify the persons who are to work together; leaders see to it that people…

Discusses the problems of providing a uniform educational system that would enable children of the rural Yukon to move into other Canadian school systems with minimal difficulty. States that northern communities increasingly desire more control over local education. Argues that schools must address both local and national issues to adequately…