A staff development program in two western states helps professionals in rural school systems provide comprehensive transition services to students with disabilities. The program was designed to be relevant to rural constituents and to overcome the lack of understanding of local needs by university personnel. A vision statement relating to desired…

Project SUCCESS (School-University Consortium Collaboratively Enabling Success for All Students) was an effort of Oklahoma State University and four nearby rural school districts to develop and deliver a graduate course on instructional competencies needed in the inclusive classroom. The goal of the project was to offer opportunities for teachers…

Information is presented about students in South Carolina public schools by grade. Information on sex and racial/ethnic composition is provided for each school, and each is characterized as rural, urban, or mixed. Student average daily membership counts are rounded at the school level. Of the 1,109 South Carolina schools, 482 are considered rural,…

This report of the Distance Education Secondary School Committee of Northern Ontario, which is composed of representatives of the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Independent Learning Centre, Native and French language components of the MOE, and Contact North, discusses the role that the Contact North distance education network can play in the…

Rural and urban education systems in China are compared in terms of funding, educational resources, living and learning environments, teacher quality, and students' chances of social mobility. Fundamental inequality exists between urban and rural schools. Differential treatment of two types of schools, "keypoint" and…

In 1986, the Utah State Board of Education approved a policy of subject specific certification for all secondary and most middle level teachers in the expectation they will hold an endorsement in any subject they are assigned to teach. To assure quality teaching and at the same time provide for a variety of certification options, the Board…

This report tells the stories of 44 rural science and mathematics teachers who have been initiating and leading change in their classrooms and communities. Each has participated in the Science and Mathematics Academies for Rural Teachers (SMART), which: (1) recognizes and rewards outstanding science and mathematics teachers in small rural schools…

Despite the open-door policies of community colleges, studies have shown that minorities and students of lower socioeconomic backgrounds graduate and transfer at lower rates than students from higher socioeconomic groups. To examine the interplay between institutional culture, ideology, and socio-historical forces shaping student perspectives and…

Lewis-Clark State College, Idaho, developed a model program, Partnerships Project, designed to provide rural community residents with access to higher education and to assist communities in increasing their local capacity for development. In pursuing these objectives, the program helped to change the nature of the postsecondary undertaking in…

This document provides an overview of the Regional Educational Laboratory operated by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL) during 1986-1990. AEL staff works with educators in ongoing research and development-based efforts to improve education and educational opportunity in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Part I of the…

Many at-risk student intervention programs are not affordable for small rural schools. The Cooperative Alternative Program (CAP), a cooperative dropout prevention program administered by six western Texas rural school districts, is described in this report. The program is designed to meet graduation requirements, teach vocational skills, provide…

Rural schools have often lacked sufficient resources to acquire training, consultant, and evaluative services. The expertise of faculty in university teacher and administrator training programs has been largely untapped. This is primarily because of a lack of programs linking rural schools with the university faculties that might provide needed…

Rural teachers of vocational agriculture, realizing the need for access to current information in their field, obtained funds for initiating the use of a computerized telecommunications service. The service selected, AgriData Network, includes reports of news, markets, and trends; a collection of over 500 teaching plans in all subject areas in…

This paper describes a competency-based program to train local adults as school counselors in the remote areas of Manitoba (Canada). In 1983, the program selected 6 men and 12 women from 15 communities for training; candidates were 23 to 48 years old, with educations ranging from grade 5 to first year university, were well respected in their…

The case study illustrated how the principles of the ecological paradigm guided the entry, assessment, design, implementation, and evaluation of three collaborative interventions in a rural Oregon high school. A core group of faculty and administration at the small high school serving 370 students in grades 8-12 requested four University of Oregon…