Why Rural Matters 2003: The Continuing Need for Every State to Take Action on Rural Education


Last Updated: February 01, 2003
 

by Elizabeth Beeson, Rural Trust Policy Analyst and Marty Strange, Rural Trust Policy Director

Why Rural Matters 2003

Report PDF (1.92 MB)
 

Why Rural Matters 2003: The Continuing Need for Every State to Take Action on Rural Education is the second analysis by the Rural Trust of data on education in rural America from a wide variety of sources. The report's conclusion: specific policy attention to rural school needs is critically needed in many states.

The report, which is geared to state education policymakers and the rural people they serve, aims to shed light on an often-neglected facet of American public education. "Nearly one in three of America's school-age children attend public schools in rural areas or small towns of fewer than 25,000 people," says Strange. "Yet if you listen to the education policy debate, particularly around the impacts of the new 'No Child Left Behind' law, chances are you still will not hear much about rural schools. In most of the 50 states, they are left behind from the start."

The report uses two gauges: the Importance Gauge to determine the factors that combine to make rural education important to a particular state, and the Urgency Gauge to determine the factors that combine to make it imperative that policymakers pay attention to rural education issues. The two gauges are merged to determine a national "Rural Education Priority" ranking for each state.

On this Rural Education Priority ranking, 13 states, all in the Deep South, Appalachia, Northern New England and the Great Plains, stand out as the leading states in need of rural education policy attention. In priority order, they are Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota, North Carolina, Arkansas, West Virginia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, Montana and Maine. According to Strange, "these regions are chronically depressed, suffer large areas of out-migration, and are deeply distressed by changes in the global economy."