A learning module that focuses on problems of at-risk rural students with disabilities was developed for preservice special education teachers at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The module focuses on (1) definitions of "at risk" on the federal and state level; (2) the characteristics associated with at-risk rural special education…

This proceedings contains 60 conference papers and presentations on rural special education, disabled and at-risk students, and related matters. Topics include the Hmong and Southeast Asian immigrants in rural areas, special education service delivery in rural Kentucky, alternative funding for supplemental programs, reforming special education,…

Collaboration can improve the quality of services provided to rural students with low-incidence disabilities such as autism. When there are few of these children scattered over a wide geographic area, they cannot be clustered for services. Other rural problems include inadequate funding, lack of qualified staff, need for staff training, inadequate…

The curricular and extracurricular responsibilities of teaching in a small school district require uniquely prepared teachers. Rural teachers often need additional background in instructional methods for teaching reading, content areas other than their specialty, discipline techniques, use of community resources, and individualized diagnosis and…

For decades, teachers in British Columbia's rural schools have been expected to be professionally up-to-date but have had limited access to continuing professional education. The rough terrain and great distances between communities have made the provision of continuing professional education expensive and difficult. Their lack of access to…

A 1985 mail survey of 97 rural schools and 53 coastal (urban/suburban) schools in Queensland, Australia, investigated teacher characteristics, problems, and needs. Respondents included 504 rural teachers, 215 rural parents, 405 coastal teachers, and 179 coastal parents. The results confirm many previous findings about teaching in rural Australia.…

In order to investigate the efficacy of a decade-long language arts tutoring program, a study compared students' responses to a survey of their participation in and attitudes about the program with their Reading, Language, Math, and Total scores on the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) and other tests. The tutoring program assigned college students…

The document provides educators with data and information regarding the utilization of alternative educational processes in Latin American rural communities. Many communities exist at social and economic poverty levels and are isolated from urban centers. Documents compiled for use at alternative education conferences, held in Paipa, Colombia in…

To identify promising practices, issues, and problems concerning education for the gifted in Maine, 239 classroom teachers and 14 administrators from 11 school districts geographically distributed throughout the state responded to questionnaires which profiled teacher personal characteristics and styles, described the educational setting and…

During 1976-77, 42% of U.S. schools operated with fewer than 600 pupils and 27% operated with fewer than 300 pupils; Iowa had 181 K-12 public school systems with fewer than 300 pupils in 1977-78. All of Iowa's smaller school systems were located in the more sparsely populated rural areas of the state, had higher than average per pupil assessed…

This survey provides a moderately detailed description of each of 13 projects funded under 1965 Elementary Secondary Education Act Title III. Freedom High School is an alternative school. The Resource Room for Visually Impaired Children was established in 1972. The Remediating Motor Dysfunction project helps elementary school students to enter a…

Equality of educational opportunity for children in Appalachia served as a guiding theme for the Sixth National Education Association National Conference on Human Rights in Education. Included in this conference report are a synopsis of selected comments made by conference speakers, brief descriptions of ongoing opportunity oriented programs in…

Education is a wider learning process than actual schooling which may be too long and indirect to generate needed improvements. Creating a group of formally trained people is not sufficient to overcome the inertia of organizational structures which have inherent survival ability. Education is seen as a way to enter other types of occupations and…

Although the problem varies across the United States, overall there is a shortage of rural teachers, especially in the subject areas of math, science, and special education. Recruiting teachers for rural settings requires targeting persons with rural backgrounds, attacking the negative stereotypes surrounding rural schools, and stressing the…

Fifteen rural school superintendents surveyed in Nevada believed that raising licensing requirements would only exacerbate problems in recruiting qualified substitute teachers. They also noted that rural school districts do little to recruit substitute teachers beyond newspaper advertisements. Offers suggestions for improving recruitment while…