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Rural Trust Programs
The Rural Trust's Capacity-Building Program is based in Henderson, North Carolina, and has as its stated purpose "to develop the capacity of rural teachers, administrators, students, parents, and community members to create a rich, rigorous, and relevant system of education that enlarges learning and improves and sustains community." To carry out its purpose, the program has developed a comprehensive school and community reform model with supporting training modules and tools. A 50-member Rural Faculty joins its knowledge and skills with a highly skilled core staff to provide training and technical assistance at the local, regional and state levels in designing and implementing place-based learning, connecting schools and communities across diverse stakeholder groups, building and sustaining learning communities, assessing student learning and community growth; and developing support structures for place-based learning. While the organization's work in the past has been focused on rural schools and communities, the work itself has much broader implications and utility for schools and communities of all types. The Capacity Building Program and Place-Based Learning The Capacity Building Program works with schools, teachers, students and community members to foster and strengthen "place-based" education programs. This work is based upon the following six principles: In Rural Trust schools and communities: 1. The school and community actively collaborate to make the local place a good one in which to learn, work, and live. 2. Students do sustained academic work that draws upon and contributes to the place in which they live. They practice new skills and responsibilities, serving as scholars, workers, and citizens in their community. 3. Schools mirror the democratic values they seek to instill, arranging their resources so that every child is known well and every child's participation, regardless of ability, is needed and wanted. 4. Decision-making about the education of the community's children is shared, informed by expertise both in and outside the school. 5. All participants, including teachers, students, and community members, expect excellent effort from each other and review their joint progress regularly and thoughtfully. Multiple measures and public input enlarge assessments of student performance. 6. The school and community support students, their teachers, and their adult mentors in these new roles. Major Accomplishments of the Capacity Building Program in 2001 By focusing on a broad set of issues affecting rural education, including teacher education, youth voice and involvement, and alternative assessment methods for place-based education, the Rural Trust's Capacity Building Program made strides this year to introduce the Rural Trust to the nation and expand place-based curriculum across regions. In order to meet our goals of deepening and broadening the work of place-based education, introducing new programs and people to the Rural Trust, improving and sustaining the capacity of rural communities/schools, and building networks of support for rural schools and communities, the Capacity Building Program sponsored regional and national meetings aimed at sharing and discussing the future of rural education. At four regional meetings (Appalachia, Northwest, Southwest and Upper Midwest), 650 participants from 22 states attended and shared their work. The national meetings, including our Student Extravaganza, biennial Rendezvous, and annual Stewardship Institute, attracted more than 700 students, educators and community members from 37 states. Educational Renewal Zones The Capacity Building Program began a pilot program for Educational Renewal Zones (ERZ) in Missouri this year; the Rural Trust plans on expanding to other states in the coming years. ERZ is a highly focused, well-coordinated collaboration among schools, communities, higher education institutions, and statewide organizations to address the complex problems facing rural schools and communities as result of poor teacher supply and quality and lack of access to technological and other resources. In Missouri, we formed a collaborative with three higher education institutions, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, a technical college, the Coordinating Council of Higher Education and a number of statewide technical support organizations, as well as a panel of six rural superintendents to advise in the process. With the goals of restructuring the teacher and technology coordinator recruitment, training, and retention efforts of rural communities, developing relationships among institutions, schools and communities to integrate the use of appropriate technology in rural schools, and building and sustaining strong community support for schools, the five-year process has just begun. Youth Council We launched a National Youth Council this year, composed of 18 youth aged 14-19 representing 14 states. Concentrating on the areas of place-based education and youth/adult partnerships, the group developed a strategic plan for its work over the next couple of years. The group set goals for teacher training and partnering, marketing and communications, developing and presenting speeches, youth/adult partnership training and assessment, and student advocacy. Portfolio design/alternative assessment This year we designed a comprehensive assessment and support system for place-based school and community work. At the high end of the system is a portfolio-based assessment process created in part through the work of nine design teams from Rural Trust network sites around the country. Facilitated by staff from the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the teams worked to create an online and print workbook that can be used by schools and communities to document, assess, share, and, most of all, strengthen their place-based work; make a persuasive case for their efforts to important audiences, both close and distant; and form the basis for requesting waivers from the often narrow and limiting assessment practices commonly accompanying current accountability models in public education. The process focuses on student learning, community learning, deepening and broadening the work, and youth/adult partnerships. The assessment process will be used by a minimum of 35-50 schools and communities in the coming year. Rural arts education initiative With a planning grant from the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Rural Trust embarked upon a rural arts education initiative this year. Still in its planning stages, the Rural Trust aims to help rural schools and communities redress the lack of arts learning in their schools, rediscover their artistic roots and reclaim their place in American art by developing a comprehensive arts program for the nation's rural schoolchildren. At seven regional planning meetings, community members, students and educators shared their dreams for a rural arts education initiative. Forty-seven regional representatives and arts education experts attended the national planning meeting, and there identified "best practices" from around the country, consolidated ideas from regional meetings and started to create a plan that will form a strong framework of strategies to address the multiple and unique barriers to the use and appreciation of arts in rural schools. Policy Program The Rural Trust's Policy Program aims to help rural people be effective and responsible participants in important policy issues affecting schools and communities. The policy program's efforts are based upon the following premises: 1. We are committed to public education rooted in public values. Therefore, our battle is not for the hearts and minds of elected officials, but for the hearts and minds of the general public. Our engagement is with people, for the most part, more than with politicians. 2. The active engagement and empowerment of rural people in policy making is more important in the long run than are specific changes in policy in the short run. Our objectives are not primarily legislative. Legislative objectives, of course, sometimes focus the energy of people in creative and useful ways. 3. We are especially interested in engaging those traditionally removed from policy making because of their poverty, color, place of residence, education level, or political skill. 4. Our work must bring rural people into the process of education policy making on their own terms, and not merely as carte blanche "supporters" of public schools. Most of our work therefore needs to originate in communities and among citizens rather than in the schools and among professionals. It is especially important that it include the whole body politic, as well as professional educators and parents. This commitment to involving the whole rural public is crucial because:
Major Accomplishments of the Policy Program in 2001 With rural school consolidation on the rise and an increase in disregarded, dilapidated school facilities among the numerous issues rural schools face, the Rural Trust's Policy Program worked this year in 24 leading rural states to understand the complex issues affecting rural schools and communities; to inform the public debate over rural education policy; and to help rural communities act on education policy issues affecting them. By concentrating on grassroots efforts to mobilize rural citizens, funding and conducting research on the condition of rural education across the nation, and hosting discussions on such issues as educational facilities improvement, the Policy Program has helped to elevate the position of rural education in the minds of rural citizens, policymakers and educators. Improved Grassroots Organizing Through 13 local and statewide partner organizations, the Rural Trust Policy Program supported efforts to engage rural people in shaping education policy that improves their schools and communities. Three new projects were funded this year: Vermont Children's Forum (to increase rural Vermonters' participation in that state's continuing controversy over equal educational opportunity), Arkansas Public Policy Panel (to launch a long-term effort to engage rural Arkansans, especially in the Delta region, in a wide range of education policy issues), and Citizens for the Educational Advancement of Alaska's Children (a coalition of school districts trying to establish funding equity for the most remote schools serving mostly Alaska Native populations). The work of our partner organizations improved in depth and increased in scope over the last year. We helped our partners cultivate networks of rural activists at the local level, encourage more state level participation, and increase the participation of students in policy issues. Student Activism In Ohio, Rural Action, Inc used a high-profile state Supreme Court case (DeRolph) that sought equitable funding for rural Ohio schools, as a backdrop for developing curriculum resources and commencing student organizing. They created The DeRolph Case: A Handbook on the School Funding Debate that was used in some schools as a part of the social studies curriculum. As a result, more than 900 students rallied on the statehouse lawn in May and met with legislators to present them with an "invoice" for the funds they claim the state owes to their struggling schools. Ohio Rural Action plans to build upon the success of this process next year by working with superintendents in other counties to encourage student organizing. Rural Education Research The Policy Program released Why Rural Matters in August 2000, a state-by-state gauge of the condition of rural education in the 50 states. It is believed to be the first ever attempt to describe the importance of rural education in each state, and to suggest the urgency with which policymakers should address the needs of rural schools and communities. The media coverage of Why Rural Matters included 437 newspaper stories in 45 states, reaching a combined circulation of more than 25 million readers. Radio actualities were picked up by 242 radio stations and 12 statewide radio networks; Rural Trust staff members completed approximately 75 radio interviews for stations and networks in 20 states. Television news stories aired on 18 stations in nine states. In February 2001, we released A Reasonably Equal Share: Educational Equity in Vermont, our first research project targeted to the activist needs of a state partner. The report finds that Vermont's Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1997 (Act 60) has significantly improved educational equity in the state, by reducing both tax and spending inequities across the state while preserving local control. Moreover, the report found that while test scores improved everywhere in the state, they improved most in the state's poorest towns. The document proved an important part of the state Legislature's debate on whether to soften the state's commitment to equal educational opportunity. We also commissioned an investigative report on rural education research, Where Has All the "Rural" Gone? Rural Education Research and Current Federal Reform, that found a significant lack of federal support for research on rural education. We continued to support the rural education research of independent scholars. Tools and Services We established a School-Facilities Network, a virtual information and advocacy support network linking people concerned with rural school facilities, community design, planning and finance. The network already involves more than 120 people from 38 states. An e-mail-based discussion list is the primary vehicle for information sharing, and it is starting to reach the critical mass necessary to have consistent, high quality exchanges. Events | Services | Newsroom | Contact Us | Search © 2003 The Rural School and Community Trust 
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