As COVID-19 upended the lives of students around the state, schools across Wisconsin saw a troubling increase in chronic absences. This report discusses where chronic absenteeism grew more sharply in Wisconsin. The highest rates of absenteeism occurred in schools with greater numbers of students of color and from low-income households, thus posing…

Concerns over the teaching workforce have been rising across Wisconsin in recent years, particularly since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of Forum reports have raised warning flags about declining graduates from schools of education, record turnover among state and local government employees, and the rising use of emergency K-12…

The United States has slid into educational mediocrity when compared to international peers which threatens Americans' ability to adapt in an evolving economy, be productive and content at work, put down deep roots in their communities, and help their nation continue to lead on the world stage. That decline has especially harsh consequences for…

Beginning in the 1970s, members of Native and rural white communities unexpectedly came together to protect the same natural resources from a perceived outside threat. Environmental alliances began to bring together Native Americans and rural white resource users in areas of the country where no one would have predicted or even imagined them. In…

Rural school districts across the country have seen a serious loss of employment opportunities for families in their communities. Even when jobs exist, they are often low-level service jobs that do not provide wages that encourage young people to grow roots. When good jobs are available, often those jobs are outsourced to other low-wage areas,…

The implementation, delivery, and impact on students of news programs delivered to schools by Channel One and CNN-Newsroom were examined in seven rural districts in Wisconsin. Investigation covered three districts using CNN and four districts using Channel One within a three-county area. Involved administrators, teachers, and students responded to…

This evaluation summary synthesizes the results of the first year of the Wisconsin Rural Reading Improvement Project (WRRIP), a project aimed at helping small, rural schools improve reading instruction by teaching reading as thinking (also termed "strategic reading"). The means used is staff development: specifically, a leadership team…

Based upon case studies, surveys conducted in 18 participating school districts in fall 1987 and spring 1988, meeting observations, discussions with project staff, and an audit trail, this report evaluates the first year of the Wisconsin Rural Reading Improvement Project (WRRIP), a school improvement project aimed at helping small, rural schools…

Despite the fact that many incidents of extreme violence have taken place in rural areas there is still some resistance on the part of rural school administrators to admit that violence is a problem in their schools. This article provides a comparison of rural and urban student and staff self-report of school violence (perpetration, victimization…