As a former special education teacher at the elementary, middle and high school levels, many unique and complex learning situations were encountered. The author, who was a junior faculty member on her initial trip to Kenya, experienced a very challenging, yet rewarding, learning opportunity with teachers gathered in a community located in rural…

This portrait of activist education, drawn from a larger ethnographic study into critical literacies and teacher activism in Oaxaca, Mexico in the wake of a teacher-driven social movement, showcases the celebrating of a popular, contentious national hero, Benito Juárez. In Mexico's poorest region, where teacher mobilization on the streets and…

Rural school districts face unique challenges in procuring funds, recruiting staff, and obtaining high-quality technical assistance. This environment creates problems in identifying high-quality instructional materials and implementing best practices. A collaborative learning network can address these challenges by providing access to professional…

In Indiana and Minnesota, career and technical education programs are intended to provide pathways to both postsecondary education and careers after high school. Each state's education agency, higher education agency, and workforce agency collaborated to develop career and technical education courses. These agencies partnered with the Regional…

This is the technical appendix for the report, "Does Raising High School Graduation Requirements Improve Student Outcomes?" While high school graduation rates in California have increased in the past decade, nearly 40 percent of California high school graduates do not enroll in college; the disruptive impact of the pandemic has…

In this article, the authors drew on the cultural traditions associated with the Shoshoni-Paiute tribes to design a lesson to engage students in problem solving and making arguments for their strategies. The reservation school is in an isolated rural community 100 miles from any other larger town and the participants for this article were the…

Public education today faces a troubling set of challenges, including declining enrollment, staffing shortages, and polarized communities, with school boards at the center of broader political debates. How did we arrive at this current state? This study--described here and, in more detail, in a related report--of seven California school districts…

Like a tapestry woven with one outstanding thread from beginning to end, the author's forty-year tenure as an art educator has its golden thread in her Van Go art outreach project. Quite literally, she takes students in a "van" and they "go," mostly on dirt roads, taking art to rural schools in Idaho, some of which have no more…

In 2013, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education passed a resolution to cut the achievement gap in half by 2018 and close the achievement gap by 2025. The College Equity report provides a snapshot of Indiana's college achievement gap progress -- measured by the college-going rate, early success in college and college completion -- for…

The roles and responsibilities of school counselors who serve in rural settings have increased dramatically over the years. One new aspect of the school counselor's role is to provide inservice/preservice training for teachers and school staff. With the increasing numbers of paraprofessionals now working in the schools, there is a need to provide…

Archetypal images in stories and lyrics such as Lehi's Dream in the Book of Mormon, Country Mouse and the City Mouse, and selected Country music lyrics grow from perceptions of social, cultural, and geographical realities. For their purveyors, they likely stem from personal experience as the proverbial Country Mouse in the city and/or from…

This fifth annual High School Benchmarks Report provides the most updated data on high school graduates' college access, persistence, and completion outcomes. The report was designed with several features particularly tailored to secondary practitioners and policymakers. First, results presented in this report were based on the most up-to-date…

Since the 2016 presidential campaign, for better or worse, the general public and media have placed rural America in the national spotlight. While the election placed an important spotlight on the lives, challenges, and strengths of people living in rural communities, the spotlight came with the perpetuation of myths of rural America (e.g., people…

Preparing deaf and hard of hearing students for transition is a unique challenge in North Dakota, a rural state in which the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction has identified only 32 transition-age students as "deaf" or "hearing impaired." Additional students who are deaf or hard of hearing may be being served via…

This article presents an ethnographic description of parents' and other community members' participation in the everyday life of two rural schools in indigenous Mexican communities. Adults and children, together with school authorities, transform their schools by introducing a collective orientation that contrasts with the emphasis on individual…