Students with special needs living in rural areas face a difficult challenge as they prepare for employment and adult life. Access to vocational education in rural areas may be limited by isolation, problems in teacher recruitment and retention, curriculum and instructional deficiencies, and weak financial support. In addition, program relevance…

The 5-year Experimental Schools (ES) project in the South Umpqua, Oregon, school district was observed from a "participant observer" point of view. The South Umpqua district served four rural communities in which residents were adaptable to economic change, accepting of newcomers, and very involved in their communities as decision makers…

Rural administrators play a key role in encouraging change within schools and in integrating a career education program into the existing curriculum. The guide covers innovation and its relationship to education's goal and objective; factors affecting educational change within the school, community, and administration; and the community's role in…

This packet includes reprints of journal articles and other information concerning student, program, and staff assessment in small, rural schools. The five sections of the packet cover an introduction to authentic assessment, classroom and subject area assessment, descriptions of assessment programs, assessment of school boards and staff members,…

This report illustrates how community service learning can be used as a vehicle for achieving the goals of education and youth development and, concurrently, how it is highly consistent with the goals of systemic educational reform, particularly in rural schools and communities. Part 1 covers the definition of service learning as a method of…

This report describes issues relating to rural teacher preparation and inservice opportunities. Among these issues are: the need to prepare teachers for the rural education experience; the characteristics of success to be developed by teachers in rural settings; programs and strategies to engender those characteristics; and the considerable…

Resources available to Arizona through the School-to-Work Opportunities Act will not be concentrated in rural communities, although their educational and economic development needs are proportionately greater. Absent from education reform bills pending in the Arizona House and Senate is any reference to school-to-work transition or any explicit…

This book consists of 13 essays focusing on successful developments in education in rural and remote regions across Canada. Essays examine the integration of local or Aboriginal culture into education, need for educational partnerships between parents and schools, importance of distance education in meeting the educational needs of rural students,…

This paper describes how rural school districts can use educational technology to evolve into learning communities that meet the learning needs of all community members. The story of a fictitious small rural school district illustrates how the role of education can be expanded through technology. The superintendent developed a distance education…

This book examines the educational history of the Midwest during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Specifically, the book overviews the development of rural education in Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Minnesota. Data sources include the reports of state superintendents; Annual Reports of the…

This report examines the use of community-based support to facilitate curriculum renewal efforts in small rural school districts. Interviews with educators from five school districts in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington describe three approaches to curriculum renewal: community-initiated approaches, state-directed reform efforts, and…

This study used focused interviews, participant observations, and document review to identify five organizational and personal factors that 40 teachers (general education, special education, and specialists) in a small rural school district reported as affecting their receptivity to change: (1) the degree to which schools are ready for change; (2)…

This journal issue gathers together several articles on teaching with technology, with special focus on teaching of gifted students in California. "Computers and Creativity: Tools, Tasks, and Possibilities" (Bernard J. Dodge) discusses how teachers can establish an environment that will nurture creativity through use of computers.…

Articles focusing on UNESCO's role in educational development in Asian and Pacific countries are gathered in this issue commemorating UNESCO's 40th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of the Regional Office for Education in Asia and the Pacific. Following an overview of educational needs and achievements, current activities of four UNESCO offices…

Surveys of 380 Wisconsin farm households taken in 1953, 1963 and 1973 documented social, attitudinal, institutional and technological changes over a 20-year period, and suggested some basic trends in neighborhood and kin contacts, farm-practice adoption, attitudes toward education, and participation in voluntary organizations. Educational trends…