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State Policy Analysis
Why Rural Matters 2003: The Continuing Need for Every State to Take Action on Rural Education
A report by Elizabeth Beeson, Policy Analyst and Marty Strange, Policy Director, Rural School and Community Trust
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."
Please click here to download the full report (1.9mb). Click Here to download the report summary (148kb).
Portions of the report can be found below as PDF documents. The PDF format requires that you have Adobe Acrobat Reader software which comes with most newer Web browsers, or you can download it at Adobe's Web site. Press releases are available as Microsoft Word files only.
To order a print copy of the full report at a cost of $10 per copy (which includes shipping), please contact the Rural Trust by sending mail to info@ruraledu.org. Please be sure to include your full name, mailing/billing address, and the number of copies you'd like to order. Click here to download the Why Rural Matters 2003 order form.
IMPORTANCE INDICATORS
How important is it to the overall educational performance of each state to explicitly address the particular needs of schools serving its rural communities? Seven indicators of the scale, proportion, and challenge of rural education in the state are considered.
Table 1. Percentage of State's Population That Is Rural (in PDF format)
Table 2. Number of Rural People (in PDF format)
Table 3. Percentage of Public Schools in Rural Areas (in PDF format)
Table 4. Percentage of Public School Students Enrolled in Rural Schools (in PDF format)
Table 5. Percentage of Rural Students Who Are Minorities (in PDF format)
Table 6. Percentage of All Students Attending Small Rural Schools (in PDF format)
Table 7. Percentage of Rural Children in Poverty (in PDF format)
URGENCY INDICATORS
Given conditions in the state's rural schools and communities, how urgent is it in each state that policymakers develop explicit rural education policies? Twelve indicators are used to quantify the need for concern, including some that compare the conditions in the state's rural schools with those of its non-rural schools.
Table 1. Average Rural Teacher's Salary (in PDF format)
Table 2. Ratio of Rural to Non-Rural Teacher Salary (in PDF format)
Table 3. Percentage of Rural Students Who Are Eligible for Free or Reduced-Price Lunch (in PDF format)
Table 4. Average Rural Student-to-Teacher Ratio (in PDF format)
Table 5. Percentage of Rural Teachers Using Computers in Class (in PDF format)
Table 6. Percentage of Rural Expenditures on School Administration (in PDF format)
Table 7. Rural Per Capita Income (in PDF format)
Table 8. Percentage of Rural Teachers Reporting Parental Support (in PDF format)
Table 9. Percentage of Rural Expenditures on Transportation (in PDF format)
Table 10. Percentage of Rural Expenditures on Instruction and Pupil Support (in PDF format)
Table 11. Average Number of Students Per Grade (in PDF format)
Table 12. Percentage of Rural Schools With Declining Enrollments (in PDF format)
STATE-BY-STATE RESULTS
LINKS
National Center for Education Statistics
Building Strong Rural Schools in South Carolina: The Foundations We Need
Feb 03 - Why Rural Matters Again!
Jun 02 - Census Shows Gaps Between Rural, Urban
Feb 01 - Good Neighbors: Study Links Achievement with Connections
Dec 00 - Counting Rural Out: OMB Considers New Way to Classify Counties
Oct 00 - The Changing Face of Rural America: Newly Diverse Communities Struggle With New Demands
Sep 00 - Some Discoveries From Our Research on Why Rural Matters
Aug 00 - Iowa's Diverse Rural Communities Facing "White Flight"
May 00 - Declining Enrollment: Silent Killer of Rural Communities
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