Find the Rural in the REL Rural Education Project

I'm exited to see the great rural education projects the Regional Educational Laboratory System has produced with the $40 million they've spent over the past 2.5 years. This description of Effects of Odyssey Math® Software on the Mathematics Achievement of Selected Fourth Grade Students in the Mid-Atlantic Region: A Multi-Site Cluster Randomized Trial shows the commitment the Institute of Education Sciences has toward addressing the unique needs of rural school:

This study will examine the effectiveness of the CompassLearning Odyssey Math® software in 4th grade classrooms throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. The intervention group will use the Odyssey Math® package for 60 minutes per week within the school's standard Math instructional time, and have access to the developer's professional development training; the control group will use the school's regular curriculum. Key research questions to be addressed are:

1. Do Odyssey Math® classrooms outperform control classrooms on the mathematics subtest of the Terra Nova CTBS Basic Battery?
   
2. What is the effect of Odyssey® Math on the math performance of male and female students?
   
3. What is the effect of Odyssey Math® on the math performance of low and medium/high achieving students (as measured by the pretest)
   

Intervention:CompassLearning Odyssey Math® software and related training is a commercially available product and several schools in the Mid-Atlantic region either use it or expressed and interest in doing so. The software engages students in their own learning through challenging, interactive, computer-based activities that promote exploration, individual and cooperative learning, problem solving, reflection, and real-world connections. Teachers will use the software as a supplement, as opposed to a full curriculum package, and have access to a professional development package that entails summer training and follow-up coaching throughout the year. Software access is controlled via password access and the training scheme represents the standard approach the developer offers to schools.

Design and samples:The study is a multi-site cluster randomized controlled trial, where approximately 124 classrooms will be assigned to treatment and control conditions within schools (approximately 31). Schools will be recruited from the Mid-Atlantic region and preference will be given to buildings with at least four classrooms. Schools that already use Odyssey Math® in the third and fourth grades are not eligible to participate in the study.

Outcome measures:Math achievement will be measured during the 2007-08 school year using the 4th grade mathematics subtest of the Terra Nova CTBS (Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills) as pre and post-tests. The test vendor's scoring service will be used to make allowances for special education students and English language learners. To address the research question on whether there are differential impacts of the package on high/medium versus low math achievers, a series of secondary analyses will split students into groups based on pretest performance.

Study period:Recruitment and initial teacher training will take place during the 2006-2007 school year. Data will be collected during the 2007-2008 school year.

Did you see what's rural about the project? Neither did I. I'm sure it's a fine study otherwise.

America's Two Backyards

Tim Collins used to be the Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools before it was eliminated by the U.S. Department of Education. Tim reflects on the economic gap between rural and urban Illinois in a piece from the Daily Yonder:

Today, I am riding on Amtrak from Macomb (population 20,000 or so) to Chicago (incredibly large) to testify to a legislative committee about broadband policy. ... Railroads tend to run through the nation’s back yards, offering a different perspective on towns and cities you may have driven through before. There is no doubt that the Illinois landscape is beautiful on this fine day, but my eye for rural community development cannot miss some distressing sights.

Increasingly, there are two backyards in America. One set of backyards includes the so-called urban ghettos of the 1960s and many rural areas, including small towns that don’t seem to be benefiting from this time of relatively high prices for agricultural commodities. The other set of backyards includes suburbs and vital business districts such as Chicago. The contrasts between these two sets of backyards are stark.

Rural slum seems a cruel and pejorative term to describe a rural town on this bucolic day. After all, romantic images of small-town America still linger deep in our cultural memories. But many of our rural towns are deteriorating, suffering from long-term effects of population loss, limited employment opportunities, growing poverty, and an aging population. Many young people go to the suburbs and downtowns where money, people, and opportunities reside.

...

The quick take of this essay is one word: inequality. I have lived and worked in and studied rural areas for much of my adult life. Although I know the long history of rural and urban inequities all too well, entering the vibrant suburbs and business district of Chicago is still something of a shock when compared with my home in Western Illinois, which is, from time to time, dubbed “Forgotonia.”

Rural School Leadership Lessons: Becoming a Great Leader

Bo Shembechler on seeking a mentor:

One of the biggest mistakes I see young coaches make—and young businessmen and doctors and lawyers, too, for that matter—is thinking their first job should make them rich or famous. When you're in your twenties, those things shouldn't matter. They didn't to me. Maybe they never should. They didn't to me. But especially when your're young, big money doesn't matter. Big names don't either.

Good organizations matter. Good bosses matter.

If you want to be a great leader, you need to prepare yourself to be a great leader, and the best way to do that is to study great leaders. (Bo’s Lasting Lessons,p. 7-8)

McCain & Obama on Broadband Access in Rural Communities

What role should the federal government play in bring broadband access to rural communities? Using National Public Radio interviews with advisors to the McCain and Obama campaigns, the Daily Yonder highlights the differences between the candidates.

NPR: What role should the federal government play in guaranteeing broadband access, particularly in rural communities?

Michael Powell, technology advisor to the McCain campaign:

I think, actually - and he would agree - the government has an important role to play in broadband access in rural communities. In fact, the senator is promoting a program called People Connect, in which he would hope to provide tax benefits and financial benefits to companies who would provide those services to low-income users and rural users.

I think the problem in rural parts of America are that the economics are not nearly as compelling as they are in metropolises like New York or Chicago or Los Angeles, and it may require some government assistance, either through financial subsidy policy or other kinds of creative tools like community or municipal broadband services that help bring those people into the cosmos of technology and connects them to the wonderful benefits that the Net provides.

William Kennard, technology advisor to the Obama campaign:

Well, there again you have a stark difference between the two candidates. Senator McCain has not been supportive of the universal service fund in the country. That is a mechanism that we've used for decades in this country to get phone service into rural areas. Senator Obama embraces it. Because the reality is if we rely simply on the free market, there will be many people in this country that will have to do without. And Senator Obama believes that this is not just a question of access to technology. This is fundamentally about economic development. It's about making sure that people in rural areas can participate in the Information Age.

Rural AmeriTowne

Rural AmeriTown is a resource for schools in northeastern Colorado, northwestern Kansas, and southwestern Nebraska. It offers a hands-on introduction to basic principles of our economic system by allowing students to run their own rural town.

At school, students engage in a variety of interactive lessons that focus on banking, civics, free enterprise, advertising, laws, philanthropy, job interviews and more. Students prepare for their opportunity to run a life-size town by interviewing for jobs, conducting employee business meetings, and attending job-training sessions.

During a day-long field trip, the students move into the town of 10 businesses and transform from students of economics to citizens of Rural AmeriTowne.

Rural AmeriTowne is modeled after Young AmeriTowne, and has been adapted to a rural economy. It is a project of the Young Americans Center for Financial Education