The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has been studying the four-day school week since 2015. Since then, the phenomenon of the four-day school week has spread into non-rural areas and interest appears to be growing. Given these apparent changes, the author wanted to know more about recent trends in the initiative. As districts continue…

Washington State struggles to retain qualified and diverse teachers. This teacher shortage is particularly acute in rural areas. To address this issue, the 2019 State Legislature directed the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) to produce a report with policy recommendations for increasing student teachers' field placement in rural areas…

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…

The teaching of mathematics, which arguably is so abstract as to transcend place and community and even culture (according at least to a Platonic view of mathematics), will seem to some observers particularly ill-suited to instruction in place- or community- or culture-based approaches. Nevertheless, current thinking in mathematics education,…

The rural girls in science program presented a comprehensive model of the entire scientific process. National Science Foundation funded a program, which targeted girls in rural schools serving American Indian or Latina, who are less fortunate than American students of Washington State.

Washington statewide data indicate that attrition rates did not differ between rural and urban special educators, but were twice as high for rural special educators as general educators. Interviews with special educators focus on soaring rural special education enrollments and difficulties in rural teacher recruitment. Contains 23 references. (SV)

A survey of rural Washington school board presidents posed conflict scenarios and asked the presidents to choose one of five possible recommendations for resolving the conflict. Recommendations corresponded to five power bases used by people in leadership positions. Results showed that power base preferences varied significantly among school board…

Examines a multicriteria assessment process for identification of gifted minority students in a small rural Washington school district. Describes the case study of a gifted at-risk migrant student with limited English proficiency, his identification as gifted, and subsequent instructional program. (SV)

The improvement of the rural schools of the United States is the most important school problem. The most important factor in their improvement must be better educated and better trained teachers. The education and training of teachers should always have some special reference to the work of the schools in which they are to teach. Therefore any…

Rural counties are among both the most and the least ethnically diverse, conditions that offer different but equally compelling rationales for multicultural education. Diverse communities need to acknowledge their cultural wealth, creating community structures that respect differences and build on the strengths of each culture. Homogeneous…

Survey of 141 rural special education teachers from Washington State indicated that teachers were unfamiliar with telecomputer networks and their potential use in the classroom, rarely used computer technology at home or at school, and perceived lack of knowledge as the biggest obstacle to using telecomputer networks and resources in the…

Rural Amrica has been experiencing dramatic changes in the transition toward a socially and culturally diverse society. This study is a first effort to explore multicultural reform in rural schools. Multicultural education is the process by which the school environment is modified to accommodate cultural differences as well as to teach the role…

To increase enrollment in high school science classes and, thereby, increase scientific literacy among Americans, efforts must begin in elementary and middle schools. The Blue Mountain Small School Consortium, nine small and rural schools in southeastern Washington, cooperated with Whitman College in a search for improved methods of teaching…