Deliberately patterned on the recommendations of the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, Hellgate Middle School (Montana) teaches practical skills to promote critical thinking, teamwork, and decision-making skills; uses computer-assisted learning to allow student exploration and individualized learning; includes an interdisciplinary…

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 1997 amendments that are important to rural schools are funding compliance requirements, changes in identification and evaluation of students with disabilities, and qualitative standards for providing special education and related services. Guidelines resulting from court decisions are presented…

Low achievement of state mathematics standards caused a rural Illinois school district to realize that repeated coverage of lower-level material blocked student progress. Subsequently, elementary teachers learned new ways to teach math, and secondary teachers replaced practical math with algebra courses. Students achieved new levels of math…

A model for providing a continuum of comprehensive school-community services incorporates systems of prevention, early intervention, and care. Key components for addressing barriers to learning include classroom-focused enabling, student and family assistance, community outreach, home involvement, support for transitions, and crisis/emergency…

Describes how two rural Colorado communities, threatened by the loss of their elementary schools, established a charter school based in two existing facilities. Discusses the benefits of local autonomy, the value of networking with other rural charter schools, the role of the community in school innovations, and emphases on staff development and…

The rural community college has evolved into a multipurpose institution that meets lifelong learning needs and the economy's demand for information and skills. The best institutions merge an applied higher education with extension-like services for local industry. New challenges facing rural community colleges include competition from other…

This paper is intended to describe the roles and responsibilities of the small school head and is based on the personal experiences of a serving headteacher. It seems an accepted element of academic discourse that recent governmental initiatives have impacted on the leadership and management of educational institutions in such a way that they have…

Iaroslavl Oblast is a pilot region on problems of the modernization of education. It was entirely logical that the oblast was given this status: modernization was something that administrators on different levels viewed not formally but substantively. A number of aspects were developed to improve the sector, such as normative financing of schools,…

Built in the early 1900s for African-American children, "Rosenwald Schools" are disappearing from the landscape. This article discusses preservation efforts of some of the more than 5,300 Rosenwald schools and other buildings that were built from 1913 to 1932, in rural areas of 15 states. The idea for the schools was conceived by the black…

Providing inservice education for rural special education personnel is often a problem. Educational technology offers inservice and preservice education at rural sites and brings the "rural context" to university classrooms. This paper presents three models that employ technology to prepare personnel to serve rural children with…

Since 1990, growing numbers of migrant students have prompted Cobden School District (Illinois) to develop a bilingual education program incorporating native-language instruction for students who speak Spanish, content courses in Spanish, and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes. The Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery is used to determine…

Rural counties are among both the most and the least ethnically diverse, conditions that offer different but equally compelling rationales for multicultural education. Diverse communities need to acknowledge their cultural wealth, creating community structures that respect differences and build on the strengths of each culture. Homogeneous…

This paper describes an inclusion program at the Kayenta Unified School District (KUSD), located on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona. KUSD is a rural school district with approximately 2,800 students enrolled in 4 schools (primary, intermediate, middle, and high schools). Virtually all students are Navajo, with 88 percent of students…

The characteristics of one-room rural schools in Barbour County, West Virginia, are representative of one-room rural school characteristics in general. These include building design and problems; teacher' lives and duties, certification, salaries, and training; scheduling and curriculum; games; punishments; and hot lunch programs. Since one-room…

A general overview of information related to Texas schools is presented for the 1990-91 school year. The document begins with an examination of state level statistical data and concludes with detailed information about each school district. The state level statistical highlights section discusses administrative units, students, student…