Rural Education

Background

Rural schools educate a significant number of America's children. Nearly forty percent of America's school-age children attend public schools in rural areas or small towns with populations of less than 25,000. Forty-nine percent of the nation's public schools are located in rural areas and small towns and 41 percent of public school educators teach in rural community schools.

Rural public schools offer positive benefits to students and educators. Rural schools tend to be smaller in size than their suburban or urban counterparts, with smaller class sizes and more interaction among faculty, students, and parents. Rural school districts are often the largest single employer in their area and rural schools serve as the social, recreational, and cultural foundation of their communities.

Smaller classes and greater community involvement have resulted in higher average student achievement scores, higher graduation rates, and greater involvement in extracurricular activities among rural students. In addition, rural communities have launched a number of innovative strategies that have promise for all schools – including cooperative learning, site-based management, multi-grade classrooms, resource consolidation, regional consortia, distance education, community involvement, and cross-disciplinary course work and teaching.

Rural schools face formidable challenges in continuing to provide high-quality education. While rural and small town schools have many of the same needs as other schools, they often face different challenges based on their unique characteristics. Approximately 100 small rural public schools close each year; small rural districts are closing at a rate of 80 per year. Funding deficiencies, lack of programs targeted to students with special needs, difficulties in recruitment and retention of teachers, and inadequate facilities are among the challenges facing rural schools:

• Lack of Funding: Although rural and small schools educate nearly 40 percent of America's students, they receive less than 25 percent of the total federal, state, and local spending on public education. Rural and small schools tend to be located in areas with low property values and few industries, making it more difficult to raise additional revenues. In addition, because federal grants are awarded based upon student population, rural districts often receive insufficient grant funds to accomplish the stated purpose. Rural school districts also often lack the expertise and capacity their urban and suburban counterparts in formulating grant applications for competitive federal grants.
  
• Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Rural schools face formidable challenges in recruiting and retaining quality teachers. Compared with teachers in central city schools and urban fringe schools, rural teachers tend to be less educated, slightly less experienced, younger, and less likely to belong to a minority group. Professional isolation and chronically low salaries and benefits exacerbate the difficulty in attracting quality teachers to rural and small town schools.
  
  Rural and small town teachers are also less likely to have access to professional development, special services, and opportunities for peer collaboration. They are more likely to have to teach out of the field in which they are certified. Few accredited teacher education institutions prepare teachers to teach in rural areas.
  
• School Modernization: Fifty-two percent of rural and small town schools have at least one inadequate building feature, such as leaky roofs, faulty wiring, peeling paint, and malfunctioning heating, ventilation, or air conditioning systems. Approximately 4.6 million students in rural areas attend schools with at least one inadequate building feature. In building new schools with better technologies, some states and districts have closed older, smaller schools, forcing rural students to travel two hours or more to school.

Congress has already recognized the unique needs of rural schools. The 106th Congress recognized the need to devote additional resources to rural schools. Legislation enacted in 2000 guarantees a predictable federal payment to rural counties dependent on timber revenues. The 106th Congress also funded a Rural Education Initiative (REI) to facilitate increased funding for education technology, professional development, teacher recruitment and retention, parental involvement, or academic enrichment programs in rural districts.