Rural America is rapidly becoming more diverse, yet rural communities remain different from their urban and suburban counterparts. Despite several decades of economic hardship in rural areas, rural schools are under researched by scholars and under prioritized by policymakers. Therefore, this study was designed to better understand how school and…

The Extension services of Washington State University, Oregon State University, and the University of Idaho established Pacific Northwest Extension Publishing (PNW Publishing) in 1946 as a mechanism of regional cooperation and cost savings. Other regions followed suit in the decades that followed. Today, PNW Publishing is the last standing…

This report covers fall 2014 enrollments for WUE [Western Undergraduate Exchange], WRGP [Western Regional Graduate Program], and PSEP [Professional Student Exchange Program]. It details the funds that flow between students' home states and the enrolling PSEP institutions that receive them. This newly expanded format gives detailed enrollment for…

There has been renewed interest in regional cooperation since the economic downturn began in late 2007. In 2012, 14 of 15 Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) states are facing dramatic cuts in their budgets, and economists are cautious about predicting exactly when the economy might begin to improve. Fortunately, the…

Regional cooperation is crucial in times of economic downturn. In 2011, 14 out of 15 of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) states are facing dramatic cuts in their budgets and the trend is expected to continue. Despite hard times, students and their families in the West continue to benefit from hundreds of millions of…

The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) conducted a study of educational needs in its member states: Alaska Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The 1992 Regional Needs Assessment had three objectives: (1) to identify current and emerging issues affecting educators in the Northwest; (2) to identify research and development needs…

The Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board renegotiated reciprocity agreements with Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia in light of state legislation curbing and reducing tuition waiver reciprocity. Legislation in 1992 required state institutions to reduce the total amount of operating fee revenue waived by 6.6 percent and allowed…

New Jersey and Washington have developed novel and different approaches to supporting faculty development by bringing faculty members, including many senior members, together to work on revitalizing the teaching experience. The program models are described, and the reasons they have been effective are explored. (Author/MSE)

An adult evening education program called SPHERE (Spokane Higher Education Regional Enrichment), which is a consortium of seven private and public institutions of higher learning, illustrates much on the subject of external communication linkage as it applies to schools. External and internal communications problems between member schools are…

Seven small rural school districts (averaging less than 100 high school students each) in Lincoln County, Washington, joined to perform a vocational assessment of their districts. All grade 9-12 students were mailed questionnaires; 520 surveys were mailed and 212 were returned. Only 26% of the students indicated that they were thoroughly familiar…

To assess the attitude of high school students toward travel away from their home school for vocational training, a two-part study was conducted. The objective of the first part was to determine the number of students in the State of Washington who actually traveled away from their home schools for vocational training and of the second part to…

A curricular articulation project was developed and conducted as a coordinated effort among ten school districts, two vocational-technical institutes, and three community colleges, comprising a regional area north and east of the city of Seattle. The purpose of the project was to test the feasibility of developing and conducting an articulation…