Two areas--understanding what rural education is and what its real needs are--are critical in preparing educators, specifically language arts educators, for a rural setting. Although the problems facing these teachers are many, minimal preparation and training at the college level deal with the rural setting. Mainly due to funding, modern…

A program, Team Approach to Assessment and Programming (TAPP), to provide services to deaf blind and otherwise severely handicapped students in rural areas, is described. The project was designed to increase the number of severely handicapped students being served in integrated, age-appropriate local settings by expanding the capacity of local…

Project LIFT is a 3-year model demonstration program designed to provide family-focused, home-based early intervention services to rural parents of handicapped children under 3 years of age. The LIFT model encompasses: (1) development of an Individual Family Service Plan, (2) case coordination to assist families in identifying and obtaining…

Forming a consortium to share the financial burden of bringing microcomputer hardware and software into the schools is one way that small schools can maintain educational quality and equity in a time of rapidly increasing microcomputer technology. Six small schools in Missouri, in conjunction with the Missouri Department of Elementary and…

Major social science concepts that have an impact on a study of teacher education in developing nations are discussed. The relationship between national progress and teacher education is considered, and economic, political, and social realities facing these nations are pointed out. Among those discussed are: (1) economic problems of high…

This study of rural schools in the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas focused on self-reported characteristics of secondary school principals as well as their leadership style. A total of 592 surveys were mailed to the identified population, of whom 462 returned completed forms. It was found that the Great Plains rural…

This paper describes the Renewal Institute for Practicing Educators, a staff development program designed specifically for rural teachers. The institute is a state-funded cooperative effort between school districts and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. It provides tuition-free spring and summer workshops for rural teachers in science,…

Attention to small schools in Manitoba reflects concern for rural development, recognition of cultural pluralism, awareness of benefits of small town living, and a growing scepticism about benefits of consolidation which have led to an appreciation of traditional small school educational practices. The challenge for small school educators is to…

The University of New Mexico's three-year Computer Assisted Instruction Project established one mobile and five permanent laboratories offering remedial and vocational instruction in winter, 1984-85. Each laboratory has a Degem learning system with minicomputer, teacher terminal, and 32 student terminals. A Digital PDP-11 host computer runs the…

Computer simulations of agricultural finance and management may be helpful to students preparing for agricultural careers. Simulations would provide problem definition and problem solving in realistic interactions with complex and ambiguous situations similar to those encountered in farming. The paper describes a major financial problem for…

Rural equality of opportunity is a single, composite topic, which encompasses three types of rural residents and eight rural specific concepts of equality of opportunity. The three types of rural residents are: indigenous minorities; country town or remote rural residents and rural itinerants; and neo-ruralists or urban expatriates. The first two…

The economic, social and educational needs of rural youth in England and Wales are not being met. Rural youth are defined as all young people between the ages of 10 and 25 living in areas more than 30 miles from towns of 250,000 inhabitants, or 20 miles from towns whose population is between 50,000 and 250,000. The rapid decrease in the…

Performance of rural 13-year-olds on the 1971-1972 social studies assessment by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were reviewed in terms of three major exercise themes. Performance on skill exercises revealed rural strengths in source selection and human affairs insights, but weaknesses in reading maps and graphs. Fewer than…

Individualized, self-paced instruction and an open-entry-open-exit calendar have several advantages which help to overcome the restraints that may modify equal educational opportunity at small, rural colleges. These restraints include limited resources of students, distance from campus, effects of agriculturally-related occupations on student…

The development of the Satellite Television Demonstration Project in Alaska, delivering commercial entertainment television, is briefly described; and important educational issues related to the delivery and usage of commercial television via satellite in Alaska are discussed, including (1) justification for the demonstration project; (2)…