Many small rural schools are facing a crisis of declining student populations and in the era of school choice, school districts are looking at innovative ways to attract and retain students. Research is limited on the qualitative experiences of people in communities who are focused on increasing inter-district open enrollment in K-12 schools as a…

A country's productivity and economic competitiveness rely upon education, specifically postsecondary training which is fundamental to students' upward mobility in a thriving and progressive economic culture (Haunshek & Woessmann, 2012; Bailey et al., 2015). In order to maintain the economic stability of the United States for future…

This article describes a qualitative study which investigated how teachers made meaning of and responded to diversity in their rural school. While there is a large amount of information regarding how diversity plays out in urban settings and how teachers respond to it [e.g. Dei, G. J. S., I. M. James, L. L. Karumanchery, S. James-Wilson, and J.…

This paper documents the first year of a qualitative case study investigating the experiences of reciprocal learning teams of teachers within a small, rural secondary school. The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers experienced collaborative professional development (PD) and how their experiences contributed to developing the culture…

Drawing on the Whole Schooling principles and Pierre Bourdieu's sociological concepts of habitus, capital and field, this qualitative case study explored and analysed preschool teachers' pedagogical behaviors and attitudes toward children with disabilities in three rural kindergartens in the Kpando district of Ghana. The study focused specifically…

This paper discussed a qualitative research findings on the case of Malaysian teachers employed their professional local knowledge for enhancing students' thinking skills in classroom practices. In this paper, a teacher's professional local knowledge is viewed as a teacher's professional knowledge and skills developed through the combination of…

Many early-career teachers (ECTs) begin their teaching careers in rural and remote schools in Australia, and do not stay long, with consequences for their own lives, and for their students, schools and communities. By understanding how first-year ECTs navigate personal (subjective) and contextual (objective) conditions, opportunities to disrupt…

Background: Research on rural educational leadership is often overlooked in educational research, specifically within the context of homegrown leaders, or leaders who have been lifelong residents in the districts where they were students, teachers, and now lead as principal. Rural districts face many challenges that differ from urban districts.…

There are 339 schools in Texas that are struggling, defined as "improvement required" by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) (txschools.gov, 2018) and received a "F" rating due to low academic performance. This designation is earned through a formula that measures general student achievement, school progress based on a comparison…

A Performance and Development Framework has been introduced by the New South Wales Department of Education, the largest provider of schooling in Australia, during a period of unparalleled reform. Engagement with the Framework is mandatory for all the Department's teachers, and is linked to improving student outcomes through enhanced teacher…

Rural schools have repeatedly been subjected to standardizing state and federal education policies that seek to minimize variance in instructional systems and increase the number of college- and career-ready graduates. The Race to the Top policy agenda combined standards-based and accountability-based reforms to meet these objectives and once…

The purpose of this case study was to describe the experiences of rural school district leaders who implemented and have sustained a one-to-one technology program at the secondary level so to provide school districts considering one-to-one implementation knowledge of best practices. This study was a qualitative, bounded case study that used a…

In a Southern state at a rural high school, leadership staff implemented phonics-based strategies with 9th grade English teachers to improve students' Lexile reading scores. The absence of formative data related to program implementation left stakeholders without a clear understanding of the influence of the phonics-based strategies. The purpose…

This case study focuses on the diverse discourses Latinx bilingual students bring to class to make sense of power relations in the world. The study implements critical literacy practices such as read-alouds, discussions, writing, and drawing activities that help students critique and disrupt power discourses embedded in texts and visuals. With the…

Despite less than 10% of South Africans claiming English as their home language, it has become the de facto language of instruction. Yet we cannot assume that teachers have sufficient command of this language when using it for instructional purposes. As a sub-study, in this article we report on the oral proficiency of isiZulu-speaking pre-service…