In the United States, national and state standardized assessments have become a metric for measuring student learning and high-quality learning environments. As the COVID19 pandemic offered a multitude of learning modalities (e.g., hybrid, socially distanced face-to-face instruction, virtual environment), it becomes critical to examine how this…

In this descriptive and comparative study, we present results highlighting the complexity and scope of the challenges facing rural districts as they navigate the changing demographics of the students and families they serve. Rapid increases in the number and concentration of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students in rural areas…

Education has long been a tool to societal reform. In recent years, the federal government has taken unparalleled action. Both reports such as A Nation At Risk and programs like No Child Left Behind have increased the Federal Government's involvement in education to unprecedented levels. In order to meet the new standards, educators have begun to…

To date, there has never been an empirical study that has examined the actual activities of rural principals on behalf of improving mathematics education. This monograph presents the results of the first study of rural principals' engagement with mathematics education "reform." This study posed three research questions relating to rural…

This document summarizes the proceedings of the Third ACCLAIM Research Symposium, which took place over three days from May 18 through May 20, 2006. The Center's doctoral students took prominent roles, especially the entire second cohort of doctoral students. Three members of the first cohort also participated in events. Overall, the symposium…

A rural Ohio elementary school monitored the relationship of its restructuring efforts to students' reading achievement and self-perceived motivation to learn. Restructuring efforts involved multiage grouping, cooperative structures, community groups, full inclusion of children with mild learning handicaps, integrated curricula with thematic…

Principals' support for various approaches to educational planning were examined in rural and suburban schools in Ohio and West Virginia. It was expected that rational approaches to planning would be more prevalent in suburban than rural schools and in a state with more tightly coupled bureaucratic control (West Virginia) than a less tightly…

One small, rural high school used cooperative professional development (CPD) as a means of group investigation to promote school renewal. CPD involves teaching, identifying, studying, and reporting on an issue of importance to teachers and their school. This paper describes how the school implemented and used CPD, examining lessons learned.…

Within this book Leadership for Social Justice: Promoting Equity and Excellence Through Inquiry and Reflective Practice the contributors provide a variety of rich perspectives to the social justice phenomenon from the lens of empirical, historical, narrative, and conceptual designs. These designs reiterate the importance of bridging theory and…

A survey of 604 principals of suburban and rural schools in Ohio and West Virginia found that suburban Ohio principals showed less interest in traditional-consensual approaches to planning, whereas rural Ohio principals showed less interest in the new technicist approaches. Suburban West Virginia principals favored the new technicist approach,…

This study examined barriers facing rural schools in serving students at-risk and the perceptions of teachers, parents, and administrators related to the difficulty in changing these barriers. Seventeen rural school districts representing 5 counties in southern Ohio participated in the study. The survey collected 846 completed responses from…

The faculty of one rural middle school in Ohio received professional development funds to implement a 5-year school improvement plan (Ohio's Venture Capital initiative). A study of the project investigated: (1) how the experience affected teachers' perceptions of their roles as reflective practitioners and as resources to their colleagues; (2) how…

In the 1990s, the nation's educational focus turned to troubled schools in the nation's poorest cities. Under the leadership of Luther Williams, then Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Urban Systemic Initiative was created to improve the teaching and learning of science and mathematics. Recognizing that high-needs…

This bulletin contains abstracts of addresses delivered at a 2-day conference of State and county rural-school supervisors of the Northeastern States, called by the United States Commissioner of Education in New York City, New York, April 23 and 24, 1928. Abstracts were prepared from manuscripts submitted by the authors. The conference was the…