The roles of technology and education were at the forefront throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This mixed-methods study examines the role of the three levels of the digital divide (i.e., access, capability, and outcomes) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kentucky. We create and analyze a new multifaceted measure of district-level digital capacity to…

This brief gives a snapshot of how school districts across the country are currently planning for fall 2020, how they are planning for contingencies of COVID-19 spread, and how this varies based on district characteristics. From August 17-21, we reviewed district websites, social media, and local news to collect data from a sample of 477 districts…

This study examines trends in educator turnover and retention, and the relationships of those trends to educator and school characteristics, during a six-year period (2012/13 to 2017/18, with 2011/12 as the base year) in Alaska. Turnover refers to educators leaving their positions, while retention refers to educators staying in their positions at…

Across the United States, students attending rural school districts can face different obstacles than their urban counterparts, particularly rural students from households living below the federal poverty level. But how rural districts are defined can vary by federal, state, and local entity and can sometimes not capture the difficulties specific…

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, progressively more complete data have shed light on the tremendous variation in districts' approaches to schooling. Some districts have provided fully remote learning since the outset of the pandemic, some have mostly provided in-person learning, and others have fallen somewhere in between. In this report,…

American discourse is often accused of neglecting the interests and values of rural citizens, and this is particularly true when it comes to education. Rural students and the schools they attend receive little attention in either policy or academia. This report attempts to shed badly needed light on the challenges, and point to policies and…

There have long been anecdotal reports that some Maine districts have difficulty filling vacancies and retaining teachers. This is a common lament for schools in rural areas, and for schools across the state in hiring teachers for certain subject areas-namely math, science, special education, and foreign languages. Current policy initiatives in…

Federal and state governments in the United States make extensive use of student poverty rates in compensatory aid programs like Title I. Unfortunately, the measures of student poverty that drive funding allocations under such programs are biased because they fail to reflect geographic differences in the cost of living. In this study, we construct…

This article provides provide a new, systematic profile of more than 18,000 homeless students in Michigan, utilizing rich administrative data from all test-taking students in Grades 3-9 during three academic years. These data are part of a larger study of school choice and student mobility in that state. Homelessness is a condition found…

The purpose of this study was to examine the college enrollment and persistence rates of rural high schools in Pennsylvania; the types of postsecondary institutions in which students from such schools enroll; and the student, school, and college characteristics associated with enrollment and persistence outcomes. The study used extant data from…

Reviews nonmetropolitan regional demographic trends of the 1980s including population change, age distribution, migration by county type and age, effect of metropolitan proximity, changes in income and poverty, minority population, educational attainment, numbers of rural schools and school districts, and district enrollment. Suggests that…

This document aims to assist understanding of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and to insure the implementation of a school discount methodology that is rational, equitable, and methodologically defensible. Based on a merged database containing data from 8,814 schools, 5,670,452 students, and 18 telecommunication companies in 7 states, this…

The Rural Policy Research Institute's Rural Telecommunications Task Force assessed the rural impacts and unintended or adverse rural consequences of the Federal-State Joint Board's recommendations to the FCC regarding Section 254 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Ten critical rural components of the Joint Board recommendations are listed: (1)…

The monograph is an attempt to describe conditions existing today in rural America that can affect the operation and impact of vocational education in rural areas and, thus, should exercise an influence on policy making. It identifies statistical patterns and characteristics common to rural areas, both within regions and those that cut across…

An updated study of Kentucky school district performance since the implementation of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA) added 4 years of accountability data; compared the performance of various districts; and explored district financial and teaching resources and their impacts on performance. After the initial years of change…