Volume 4, Number 11 November 2002

INSIDE THIS ISSUE Tennessee Supreme Court Strikes Down Rural School Funding Plan Rural Perspective Featured at National School Funding Conference Leave the Money on the Table: Vermont Better Off Going It Alone Michigan Looks at Declining Enrollment in Rural Schools Arkansas Schools Needing Improvement Listed If You Resist, They Will Audit Public Likes Small Schools, Fair Funding, More Money for Low Performing Schools Declining Enrollment: Widespread, But Especially in the West About RPM RPM Archives

Public Likes Small Schools, Fair Funding,
More Money for Low Performing Schools

Among the recent findings of the 34th annual Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup Poll of public attitudes toward public schools:

• Seventy-seven say school size affects student achievement, with more than half saying elementary schools should be under 500 students, 73% saying middle schools should be under 1,000, and 50% saying high schools should be under 1,000.
• Eighty-eight think funding should be the same for all public school students in their state, and 58% say they'd rather increase state taxes than cut spending in hard fiscal times.
• Seventy-seven oppose closing a school that fails to meet state performance standards, and 77% think such schools should get more funding.

At least 18% of the rural schools in every state suffered from declining enrollment of 10% or more between the 1996-97 and 2000-01 school year, according to the latest data from the National Educational Statistics Center.

More than half the rural schools lost 10% of enrollment over that period in five states -- Hawaii, Nevada, North Dakota, Montana, and Alaska.

The hardest hit region was the Northern Plains, where all five states (Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) placed among the top 11 states in percent of rural schools with declining enrollment.

Many other western states were also near the top in percent of rural schools losing enrollment at that rate, including California (48%), Idaho (47%), Arizona (47%) Utah (46%), New Mexico (45%), Oregon (45%).

There were only five non-western states where at least 40% of rural schools lost that much enrollment -- North Carolina (43%), Vermont (43%), Maine (42%), West Virginia (40%), and Louisiana (40%).

Declining enrollment is one of 11 indicators we use to rank the urgency of addressing the policy needs of rural education in each state. We also use seven statistical indicators to rank the importance of rural education in each state. Watch for the second edition of our state-by-state report, Why Rural Matters, to be released in early 2003.