The Rural Solution: How Community Schools Can Reinvigorate Rural Education

Doris Terry Williams, executive director of the Rural School and Community Trust and director of the Trust's Capacity Building Program, explains the value of full-service community schools in rural areas in this report from the Center for American Progress.

Research Raises Doubts About Benefits of Consolidation

Has the time for consolidation come and gone? Research shows that state policies that broadly push mergers of schools and districts will not save money and will likely lower the quality of education — especially for the poor.

Taking Advantage: The Rural Competitive Preference in the Investing in Innovation Program

This Rural Trust report analyzes the impact of the rural competitive preference in the first round of i3 grants issued by the U.S. Department of Education. The analysis considers whether the rural claim was well-made by the applicants and well-evaluated by the readers. In short, the federal grant program did little to attract authentically rural innovations to address the challenges of high-needs rural schools.

Rural Policy Matters: January 2011

The January 2011 edition of Rural Policy Matters includes articles about "Taking Advantage," a Rural Trust report on rural innovation in the i3 program; Rural Trust Policy Director Marty Strange briefs Congress on i3; homelessness counts underway; Formula Fairness Campaign grows; Equity and Adequacy in School Funding; Rural School Funding News, Teacher Salaries in Rural Schools, and more.

Rural Policy Matters: December 2010

The December 2010 edition of Rural Policy Matters includes articles about new co-sponsors of the Formula Fairness Campaign, a letter from senators about i3 fairness for rural districts, what makes people form attachments to their communities, the importance of revenue systems to school finance, Rural School Funding News, and more.

Rural Policy Matters: November 2010

The November 2010 edition of Rural Policy Matters includes articles about the 2010 Congressional election results; an analysis of how programs awarded “rural preference” points in the Investing in Innovation competitive grant program are proposing to work in rural districts; School Discipline, Rural School Funding News, and more.

Rural Policy Matters: October 2010

The October 2010 edition of Rural Policy Matters includes articles about how the Investing in Innovation (i3) competitive grant program is doing little to reach high-poverty rural schools; why poverty rates for young children are significantly higher in rural areas than in central cities — and that rural black children face poverty rates approaching 50%; School Discipline, Consolidation Watch, Rural School Funding News, and more.

Rural Policy Matters: September 2010

The September 2010 edition of Rural Policy Matters includes articles about a small community trying to find ways for local residents to reconnect to their own cultural inheritance and to each other in the face of economic hardship, a monolithic corporate presence, disaster, and international energy demands; why high-poverty rural districts won’t see much of the $4 billion in Race to the Top grants to states; why the mid-term elections are an important time to tell both incumbents and challengers that Title I funding needs to be fixed; and more

Rural Policy Matters: August 2010

The August 2010 edition of Rural Policy Matters includes articles about a school-wide comprehensive literacy program that's making a difference in a rural school district; number weighting in Title I funding hurts rural districts headed by African-American superintendents; a coalition of civil rights organizations has issued a compelling document outlining new federal strategies to ensure that all students have substantive and fair opportunities to learn; Rural School Funding News, and more…

Rural Policy Matters: July 2010

The July 2010 edition of Rural Policy Matters includes articles on a West Virginia community that has fought for decades to keep its K-12 schools; rural education advocacy groups that are working to bring fairness to Title I funding formulas; how some low-income rural schools are making good use of a federal formula grant; and more.

Rural Policy Matters: June 2010

The June 2010 edition of RPM includes articles sharing how you can grow your grassroots advocacy efforts; options for fixing inequities in the Title I formulas; the challenge of competitive grants for rural schools; consolidation threats in several states; characteristics of strong school finance systems; Rural School Finance News, and more…

Rural Policy Matters: May 2010

The May 2010 edition of RPM includes articles about how several small Arkansas communities have made remarkable progress in their efforts at revitalization through a partnership with the Rural Community Alliance; a rural perspective on an important case in which Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was involved; a call for transparency in Mississippi; and more…

The Rural Dropout Problem: An Invisible Achievement Gap

This report reviews high school dropout rates and related factors in rural high schools throughout 15 Southern and Southwestern states. These schools are in districts that are among the 800 rural districts with the highest student poverty rate nationally. Seventy-seven percent of the "Rural 800" districts and 87 percent of the students in them are in these fifteen targeted states.

Rural Policy Matters: April 2010

The April 2010 edition of RPM includes a story on how the Children’s Defense Fund is making the case for fixing the Title I funding formulas; how two recent Rural Trust analyses find that the negative effects of poverty on student test scores is reduced in Mississippi's small school districts and that districts ranking highly in the state’s accountability system are no better at closing achievement gaps that lower rated districts; and Financing Rural Schools, a new series that looks at what it takes to have a good system for making sure rural schools get the resources they need; and more ...

Rural Policy Matters: March 2010

This edition of RPM includes an update on the Formula Fairness Campaign; an RPM analysis of the Blueprint for Reform; a comparison of Title I funding in Chicago and elsewhere; Rural School Funding News; and more…