Prospects for Illinois public school revenues and school district reorganization in the 1980's, considered in the context of prospects for the Great Lakes region as a whole, are affected by fundamental demographic and economic changes. The region has had a lower population growth rate since 1970 than the rest of the country, and a slower growth in…

Demographic trends show an increase in the number of Black and Hispanic students in the United States, whereas the number of minority teachers is decreasing. This paper explores possible causes of this phenomenon, its implications, and some alternative responses aimed at improving the situation. Cultural isolation on college campuses and state…

The Regional Skills Program at Big Bend Community College (BBCC) was developed to offer vocational skills training to high school students within BBCC's 5,000 square miles district. The objectives of the program were to identify training needs and priorities, determine the availability of transportation to BBCC, survey college and district…

This report is a preliminary analysis of data provided by the 7 North Dakota and 14 Missouri schools involved in the German I by Satellite Program during the 1987-88 school year. In May 1988 each of the 21 schools participated in the first phase of a comprehensive distance learning study, the purpose of which was to identify the factors associated…

Nationally, disabled persons have more than twice the college drop-out rate and only half the attendance rate of the non-disabled population. In 1990 a study was conducted at Gavilan Community College to investigate the relationship of five self-concept constructs to students' academic ability, persistence, disability status and other selected…

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…

The 1983 study surveyed the largest number of rural LEAs/cooperatives to date plus a number of Bureau of Indian Affairs schools and examined previously unaddressed areas such as rural special education technology. Special education administrators from 200 rural school systems in all 50 states (4 from each state) were involved in this survey…

Interviews conducted with 45 public school teachers in a county school system in rural southern Appalachia explored teacher perceptions of cultural differences between Appalachian and non-Appalachian students and whether teachers born and reared in Appalachia differed in their perceptions from teachers born and reared outside the region. Teachers…

Many schools across the United States have been using distance learning technologies to help them meet new state-mandated curriculum requirements. Distance learning refers to the live, simultaneous transmission of a master teacher's lessons from a host classroom or studio to receive site classrooms in distant locations. Schools with the most to…

Evaluation of a French and Spanish second language program in grades four through seven of a rural school system has begun with a formative evaluation for the first three years and will conclude with a one-year summative evaluation. The research questions focus on four concerns: (1) school personnel and parent perceptions of the program during its…

The Kansas State Energy Curriculum Institute (KSECI) was conducted for 2 weeks in June 1984 at Kansas State University, Manhattan, and was attended by nine rural elementary teachers from northeast Kansas. The program included the dissemination of energy curriculum materials, field trips, guest speakers, media production, and other energy education…

School reorganization has been used extensively as a strategy to deal with the problems of small and rural schools. However, there is no comprehensive evidence to prove that consolidation has met the problems of finance, staff, facilities, and curriculum for which it has been advocated, nor are consolidation's disadvantages and ill-effects of the…

As part of Australia's Education and Local Development project, Tasmanian researchers investigated whether the upgrading of district schools to district high schools had contributed to the social, economic, and cultural development of the local areas. For three selected areas (Glenora, Sheffield, and Ouse), researchers gathered financial and…

Organizational theory offers rural school administrators several ways of thinking about retrenchment made necessary by declining enrollment. Obstacles to innovative responses to retrenchment include a shift in how organizations are perceived: from closed systems in which rational decisions are made about changes, to open systems in which…

Any conclusions that community education concepts are "alive and well" were not supported in a study of the impact of state education policies on rural school districts with total enrollments of 350 students or less in the Great Plains Region (Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota). Survey…