Navigating Resources for Rural Schools

I hadn't been there for awhile, so I was surprised to see a new look for the U.S. Department of Education's Navigating Resources for Rural Schools site. It's a definite improvement over the look of the old site, which included a lot of stock photographs that had been used in other online and print publications.

At first glance it doesn't seem like there's much data on the site. Then again, is there ever enough? It seems like I can never find the exact information I'm looking for in the tables generaqted by the National Center on Education Statistics. Actually, there is a fair amount information available on the site and I could always get the data and make my own tables.

One downside is that some of the data is old. For example, the data posted on student achievement in civics on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) is from 1998. My sense is that NCES is overflowing with data that could be used to generate information on rural schools. Should we expect NCES to do all the work and have all the fun? I don't think so.

Creating a rural education databank would be a nice project for an organization wanting to support rural education research. Anybody interested?

NREA Research Symposium

This notice came in from Bob Mooneyham, Executive Director of the National Rural Education Association.
----------
The National Rural Education Association will host the NREA Research Symposium on October 21-22, 2006, at the Westin Crown Center Hotel, Kansas City, Missouri. The NREA Research Symposium will precede the 98th Annual NREA Convention, which is scheduled on October 23-25, 2006. Registration for the NREA Research Symposium will be $150, unless you register for the NREA Convention. Registration for the 98th Annual NREA Convention provides a free registration for the NREA Research Symposium.

You are invited to submit a proposal to present at the NREA Research Symposium. All proposed manuscripts will be peer reviewed based on a uniform rubric.

The NREA Executive Committee has established a $500 award for the Best Research Paper. The award will be presented to the author of the paper that is judged to be the Best Research Paper. The award will be presented at the Symposium and the recipient of the award will present the Best Research Paper during the Research Symposium.
---------
Go to http://www.nrea.net/NREA%20Annual%20Convention.htm for more information about the Research Forum and the NREA Convention.

Rural Middle School Student Homework Management

A recently article from "The Journal of Research in Rural Education" makes the a contribution to our understanding of differences between rural and nonrural students. Authors Janzhong Xu and Lyn Corno examine homework management by middle schools students. I'm not too crazy about the definition they use for rural, but it follows standard conventions. They note that using data from only one school limits the generalizability of their findings.

Differences identified by Xu and Corno include:

"Urban students reported taking significantly more initiative in time management, focusing attention, and monitoring motivation than they did in arranging their environment or in controlling their emotions."

"Rural students ... reported taking significantly more initiative in arranging their homework environment, managing time, and focusing attention than they did in monitoring motivation or in controlling their emotions."

"Urban students took significantly less initiative in arranging their environment, while rural students took significantly less initiative in monitoring their motivation."

Xu and Corno also provide plausible explanations for the differences. You can read about them at http://www.umaine.edu/jrre/21-2.htm

Senator Salazar on Rural America

On March 3, 2006, Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colorado) gave the Keynote Address at the National Farmers Union Convention in Colorado. It was a good speech in that the Senator talked candidly about the challenges facing rural America, the obstacles to addressing them, and how the federal government should respond.

In the interest of full disclosure, I worked as a canvasser on Senator Salazar's campaign. I also tend to like him since he attended The University of Michigan Law School.

The full text of Senator Salazar’s speech is available at http://salazar.senate.gov/news/speeches/060303farmunion.html
Here are some excerpts.
----------
Often times, I have heard rural America described as the heartbeat of our great nation. As Colorado’s United States Senator, I am proud of my values and roots in rural Colorado, and I believe in that description. I also believe that rural America has the potential to be the heartbeat of our nation’s economy.

For years, our rural communities have produced the affordable food that feed American families. Rural Americans have been the stewards of the land for our future generations.

Time after time, the young men and women of our rural communities have proudly answered the call to service and have defended our country as members of our armed services.

In fact, a recent article in the Denver Post, wrote about a study that shows rural communities in Colorado, and across the U.S., are producing the vast majority of our new military recruits. For example, rural Jackson County, in northwest Colorado, has the second-highest recruitment rate in the country.

For years, our rural communities have embodied that democratic spirit on which our great nation was founded and, today, they continue that tradition.

Today, our rural communities are at a turning point. While they continue their great legacy, they are also emerging as reservoirs of vast potential to drive America toward a viable twenty-first century economy and meaningful national security.
----------
But we have obstacles to overcome. My friends, the evidence suggests that the current Administration does not share this vision of a thriving rural America. Over the past few years rural communities have carried the burden of budget cuts for the entire federal budget.

Amazingly, while agriculture accounts for less than 1% of the total budget, 25% of the proposed mandatory cuts for the next fiscal year alone will come from programs serving our rural communities. We have to keep our fiscal house in order and balance our budget - but not on the backs of the men and women of rural America.
----------
It’s not enough for the Administration to say it shares our values; it has to truly believe in those values if we are to make the difference we know we can make.

This Administration should not feel like investment in our communities is fiscally irresponsible spending or charity. Rural America should not be thought of, talked about, and invested in as a way for politicians to get votes. It should be a driver for our economy and certainly not an afterthought.

I want our government to be long-term partners with rural America, to share the vision of a thriving, innovative network of rural communities across this Nation acting as a driving force for our national prosperity and our national security. Failure to invest in the future of rural America is a terrible missed opportunity.

Education Service Agencies Supporting Rural Schools

An article in the March 2006 issue of "The School Administrator" describes the ways intermediate school districts are providing support to rural districts. Author Hobart Harmon uses examples from across the country to the value of educational service units. Some examples:

"Heywood Cordy, superintendent in Jenkins County, Ga., relies on the Teacher Alternative Preparation program offered by the Central Savannah River Area Regional Educational Service Agency. His district hired seven teachers who completed the RESA program in the past year. 'The bottom line is without the RESA pool of teaching candidates our students would have a sub in the classroom, rather than a high-quality, full-time teacher,' Cordy says."
----------
"As superintendent of the 715-student Northeast Community School District in Goose Lake, Iowa, Jim Cox relies on the Mississippi Bend Area Education Agency to adequately serve students with disabilities. The service agency has the capacity to hire high-caliber educators to serve on a regional basis. Cox finds the agency also does an excellent job in keeping school district personnel informed of new regulations and the latest research regarding special education services and issues."
----------
"In Washington state, Educational Service District 112 makes available an NCLB Communication Toolkit to its 30 school districts. It includes sample letters, forms, news releases and Q&A sheets to help educators talk easily and accurately with parents and community members about the law. 'It is one of many resources available from ESD 112 that saves us time and money,' says Jim Saltness, superintendent of the Stevenson-Carson School District in Stevenson, Wash."

Hobart's article is a nice contribution to our understanding of how education service agencies are supporting rural schools. You can view the article on the American Association of School Administrators website at http://www.aasa.org/publications/saarticledetail.cfm?ItemNumber=5450&snItemNumber=&tnItemNumber=

A Perfect Storm on the Great Plains

A March 16 report in the Denver Post describes a perfect storm of factors creating population declines in the Great Plains. Author Robert Sanchez (Plains Grow More Lonesome) cites minimal economic development in Colorado's agriculture-based counties coupled with drought and stagnate crop price as contributing to the problem. Adding to the problem are farm consolidations and the closing of manufacturing businesses.

For years economic development in many rural communities was built on attracting businesses that brought lower skilled and lower paying jobs. As a result, there were few if any jobs available for college graduates in rural communities. The current situation on the plains is evidence that the focus on lower skilled jobs is no longer a viable option for the long-term sustainability of rural communities.

The good news is that technology is helping create more jobs that can be done anywhere. I know someone who works out of their home in Colorado for a company where most of her colleagues work in their office in Philadelphia. She can literally do her job anywhere as long as she has access to high-speed Internet and mail delivery. These types of jobs will continue to grow as companies become more comfortable with people work off site.

How can schools adapt to these economic conditions? One way is to place greater emphasis on preparing students for post-secondary education. For most people a high school diploma is not sufficient to finding work in the knowledge economy. Even if they don't work in the knowledge economy most good paying jobs require some sort of college training though not necessarily a four-year degree.

Another aspect of the shift toward higher-skilled, higher-wage jobs is that people who work in these types of jobs have high expectations for their schools. Rural communities wanting to attract people who work in the knowledge economy need to have strong schools. Without good schools they might be washed away in the perfect storm on the Great Plains.

The 65% Solution

The Denver Post has done a great public service by educating the public about a proposed ballot measure that would require Colorado's pubic school to allocated at least 65% of their current operating expenditures to classroom instructional activities.

Thousands of well-intentioned Coloradoans have signed petitions to get the measure on the ballot. Governor Bill Owens became the 100,000 signers. I was asked to sign the petition at my local grocery store. The person collecting signatures wasn't too happy about the questions I asked.

On the face of it the proposal makes sense. Who wouldn't be in favor of requiring school districts to spend at least 65% of school funds on instruction? The Post's February 23, 2006 editorial lays out the arguments against the proposal:

(1) It eliminates flexibility in how local officials budget their tax money.

(2) It doesn't include counselors as a "classroom" expense. I would add it also excludes other support personnel (e.g., media specialists) whose efforts help students learn.

(3) It’s foolish to expect small rural school districts to budget money under the same formula used by large urban districts that have different challenges and expenses.

(4) If a community decides its schools aren't spending enough on classroom instruction, it can elect a new school board.

The Post also highlights the absurdity of a Democratic proposal to require schools to spend 75 percent or operating expenditures on the classroom. That proposal would include the costs of counselors, principals and food service.

The 65% solution is further proof that for every problem there's a simple solution that's wrong.

NRCRES Website

The other day I was wondering whether the National Research Center on Rural Education Support (NRCRES) had gotten a website yet. Son of a gun, they do! It's a pretty good-looking site. The site contains information about the center's work and articles for downloading from what appears to be work done under previous contracts.

One downside to the site is that it doesn't quite have a national feel to it. A major concern has been that the center would focus a disproportionate amount of attention on rural education issues in the southeast since it located at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Lending credence to this concern is that the majority of articles available for downloading in the Journal Article Gallery focus on studies involving African American students in the Southeast. While research on educational issues facing rural African Americans are of great importance, it would be helpful for us in the west to have access to similar types of studies focusing on Hispanic and Native American populations.

Adding to the regional, rather than national, feel of the NRCRES website is a slide show of scenes that look to be in the east and southeast. Adding some slides from the Southwest, Rocky Mountains, West coast, and Northwest would help create a national feel. Adding some pictures of people and schools would add an education feel to the site.

Another curious thing about the site is that it highlights an inconsistency between what NRCRES says is a research priority and its research program. The very first research topic listed by NRCRES is the "retention of qualified teachers." Yet there's no mention of teacher retention any of the three current research programs. Is this example of a federally funded project saying one thing and doing another? Having worked on other federally funded projects I've learned that what people do is more important than what they say.

The other interesting thing is that the center's work will focus on the "retention of qualified teachers" rather than on the retention of quality teachers. Anyone who has been a teacher knows that just because someone is qualified doesn't mean that they’re effective. I'll take effective over qualified every time.

Take a few minutes and visit the NRCRES website http://www.nrcres.org/. It's a pretty good start.

Update on Colorado HR 1150

Last week the Colorado House Committee on Education voted down HR 1150, a bill to establish statewide standards for when public schools in Colorado could start and end the school year. The bill would have required all of Colorado’s public schools to start school the Tuesday after Labor Day and end no sooner than the Friday before Memorial Day. To gain some insight into the bill, it's instructive to look at who testified in the hearing on both sides of the debate. See the previous post "Today's Nominees for Worst People in the World" for more information on the bill.

The first person to testify was one of the bill's sponsors, Representative Lynn Hefley (R). Among her comments were that having different dates set by local school districts hurts businesses and families. She also noted the impact of the current school district schedules on attendance at the Colorado State Fair—keep that point in mind.

Also testifying in support of the bill were Jerry McLain, representing the American Camp Association; Bill Darrough, representing Camp Timberline, Inc.; Kitty Clemens, representing herself; Craig Reed, representing the Broadmoor Hotel; Ilene Kamsler, representing Colorado Hotel and Lodging; and Christie O'Donnell, representing the Colorado Restaurant Association. Providing the best insight into the catalyst for the bill may have been Jim Snook, representing the Colorado State Fair as a State Fair Commissioner. Mr. Snook testified on the impact of school calendar on participation and attendance at the Colorado State Fair. Now we're getting to the real issue.

Testifying against the bill were Paula Stephenson, representing the Rural Schools Caucus; Phil Fox, representing the Colorado Association of School Executives; Jane Paxtun, representing herself as a member of board of education of Boulder Valley Schools; and Jane Urschel, representing the Colorado Association of School Boards.

To review, those in favor of the bill represented interests in the tourist industry and those who testified against it represented education organizations. Now lets not forget that tourism is very important to Colorado and to the state's children, youth and families. Until I took my first teaching job I lived in tourist areas my entire life and appreciate the importance of the industry to rural communities. But local communities are in a better position to make a determination about when their schools start and end.

A special thanks to Paula Stevens, Executive Director of the Rural Caucus, for keeping an eye on things at the state legislature and for helping defeat this terrible bill.

Today's Nominees for Worst People In the World

With apologizes to Keith Olbermann and the staff at Countdown, today’s nominees for Worst People in the World are Colorado State Representative Lynn Hefley (R) and State Senator Peter Groff (D). The two legislators have sponsored a bill that requires all of Colorado’s public schools to start the Tuesday after Labor Day and end no sooner than the Friday before Memorial Day.

What great educational purpose does this legislation serve? Hefley and Groff claim that the primary purpose of the bill is to reduce significant burdens on families. Parents who move into a district may not realize that schools in their new district starts earlier than their previous school and, as a result, their children may miss a week or two of school. Establishing a standard beginning date would ease the burden of finding out when school starts and would increase flexibility in planning family activities.

Those reasons would seem to affect a relatively small number of children, so why would the legislature take up a bill that will dictate the start and end times for all of Colorado’s public schools? The tourism industry needs child labor. According to House Bill 06-1150, “an early-August or mid-August start date for the school year places a significant burden on employers in retail, the food industry, and especially the tourism industry who are forced to work short-handed during what is for many businesses one of the busiest times of the year.”

Evidently local communities are unable to determine what dates work best for them in establishing the starting and ending dates of the school year. Luckily the Colorado Legislature has the time to help them out.

Representative Lynn Hefley and Peter Groff, sponsors of the bill to standardize school calendars to help Colorado’s tourism industry. Today’s, with apologizes to Keith Olbermann and the staff at Countdown, Worst People in the World.

Atta Boy Bob!

It’s difficult to craft a presidential address of any kind that captures my attention. They typically either set the bar so low that achieving the goals is virtually meaningless, or set the bar so high they’re essentially meaningless because there’s no way an organization can accomplish them.

An exception is Bob Newhouse’s presidential address to the National Rural Education Association that was excerpted in the Winter 2005 Rural Education News. In his address, Bob laid out his goals for his year as president:

1. To do everything required to continue building the performance, stature, reputation, and resources of NREA.

2. To ensure that the work of NREA is recognized by it’s constituency as vital matters that affect every citizen.

3. To focus intensively on maintaining access to NREA as a gateway of opportunity to the loyal members of NREA and the education community at large.

4. To ensure that NREA will be a positive model of diverse people working together

Bob’s aspirations for his presidential year reflect his skills as a researcher. His goals are clearly stated, understandable, measurable and achievable. He doesn’t over promise what he can deliver nor does he lower expectations.

Congratulations Bob, you got my attention and support. Not an easy thing to do.

Rural Ed SIG Steps Up

It wasn't until recently I realized that the Rural Education Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association has migrated it's website over to Blogger and added some new features. These new features make the site one of the most valuable online resources available to those interested in rural education issues. Of particular note is the addition of links to other rural education blogs and news items. The combination of research, news and commentary creates, what could be, a powerful forum to address rural education issues. The challenge for the SIG is to maintain an online community that pushes all of us out of our comfort zones.

Well done to SIG President Dennis Mulcahy and to everyone who has worked on the site. Visit the site by clicking the headline of this post or go to http://ruralsig.blogspot.com/

World Wide Growth in Agriculture

If you live near a rapidly expanding city that is steadily gobbling up agricultural land for development, you might be surprised by a small piece in the most recent Smithsonian magazine. According to University of Wisconsin researchers, the percentage of the world's landmass devoted to agriculture has increased significantly over the past century. Using satallite images and ground-level surveys, scientists estimate that 40 percent of the earth's landmass is under cultivation or used to graze animals. That figure is up from about 25 percent a hundred years ago. South America accounts for a good portion of this growth thanks to an increase in soy bean production, most of which is exported to China.

You can find the item on page 18 of the February 2006 Smithsonian magazine.

2005 Mr. Rural ED Awards

2005 was a pretty good year for rural schools. The U.S. Department of Education made significant efforts to better serve rural schools and one of its comprehensive centers sponsored an important rural education summit. There were also some very good rural education articles published. On the downside, the Regional Educational Laboratories continued to neglect their obligations to rural schools, but at least they’re consistent.

BEST COMEBACK
After a dismal 2004, the U.S. Department of Education made a good comeback undertaking significant efforts to improve educational outcomes for children and youth living in rural communities. The most important of these activities was the establishment of the Center for Rural Education within the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE). William L. Smith, the last U.S. Commissioner of Education, was named director. Another significant development was that Bevo Gonzalez, Acting Assistant Secretary of OVAE is now chairing the Rural Education Task Force taking over from Tom Luna. These events signal a new focus at the department on rural education—something that has been sorely missed in recent years. Rather than take these events for granted, take a moment and send Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings a letter or email thanking her for the department’s efforts on behalf of rural children and communities. Tell her Mr. Rural ED says hey!

BEST FEDERALLY FUNDED RURAL EDUCATION MEETING
In 2005, the Region VII Comprehensive Center stepped up to the plate to sponsor the Rural School Improvement Summit. Housed at the University of Oklahoma, the Center brought together educators from a six states to examine significant issues facing rural schools and to develop action plans to address those issues. The event was the last big activity for rural schools under the former Comprehensive Center structure. The University of Oklahoma was successful in winning the competition for the new Mid-Continent Regional Comprehensive Center that will serve Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Hopefully, the new center will pickup where the old one left off in serving the needs of rural schools. Let's hope the other ones take note of their success and sponsor their own summits.

BEST RURAL EDUCATION RESEARCH ARTICLE
Nancy Jennings, Steve Swidler and Christopher Koliba get the nod for 2005 Best Rural Education Research Article for their article “Place-based Education in the Standards-based Reform Era—Conflict or Complement?” You may have missed it since it appeared in the American Journal of Education. Nancy, Steve and Christopher examined practitioner and policymaker views on placed-based education and standards-based education in Vermont, a state that includes two place-based standards in the state’s Framework of Standards. Their findings “challenge the common view of incompatibility between state standards and locally responsive curriculum.” Oh, oh, watch out for some backlash from the Rural-Cons who’ve made hay complaining that state standards push out locally responsive instruction.

BEST RURAL EDUCATION COMMENTARY
This year the name of this award could be the Shameless Self-Promotion Award since the best rural education commentary was my own “Rural Education: A New Perspective is Needed at the U.S. Department of Education.” The Journal of Research in Rural Education had never printed a commentary before, so I appreciate Ted Coladarci taking a chance on it. A key point of that commentary was that “it is time for the [U.S. Department of Education] … to back their stated commitment to rural schools with substantial and significant action that provides tangible benefits for rural Americans.” To their credit, the department has taken steps toward achieving that goal. (See Best Comeback Award). Past experience indicates, however, that the true measure of the department’s commitment to rural schools lies in its actions not its words.

BEST REGIONAL LAB PRODUCT
It was no contest for the winner of the Best Regional Educational Laboratory Product for rural schools: "How to Recruit and Retain Teachers and Other School Leaders in Hard-to-Staff Rural and Small School Districts" from SERVE. Hobart Harmon took a lead role in developing the guide that he co-authored with Charles Ahern and Jack Sanders. One small problem is that I can’t find a copy of the toolkit on the SERVE website, though it is listed on the Pulling Together R&D Resources for Rural Schools website. Nevertheless, it is the runaway winner of this years award mostly because there weren’t any other rural education products produced by the labs in 2005. I checked both the REL Network website and that of the Pulling Together and only found this one product. Evidently the $16.5 million the labs were supposed to spend on rural education products wasn’t enough to generate more than one product. We should all probably contact our congressional delegation to urge them to allocate more money for the labs to spend on rural education. Maybe if their funding for rural is doubled we might get a couple of more products. $83 million over five years doesn’t get as many products as one would think.

Curious Timing

On Friday (December 16) the U.S. Department of Education issued a press release announcing the creation of the Center for Rural Education and naming William L. Smith as its director. Some of you will remember that Dr. Smith was U.S. Commissioner of Education before the creation of the Department of Education.

What’s curious about the timing is that Dr. Smith had already been introduced as the director of the center, most notably at the National Rural Education Association Convention in November. Why did the Department issue a press release now?

My friends who believe in a vast urban/suburban conspiracy against rural schools may see the timing as an indication of the low priority that rural schools receive at the department. Those friends are thinking, “I guess it was a slow news day and they didn’t have anything else to report.”

Those who are politically inclined, or at least watch The West Wing, may see the timing as part of “take out the trash day.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, Friday is “take out the trash day.” Since fewer people read the paper or watch the news on Saturday, Friday is the day the administration releases information they would rather people didn’t see or hear.

Another explanation is that it was announced at a meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers by Beto Gonzalez, the acting assistant secretary for the Education Department's Office of Vocational and Adult Education. That an assistant secretary level official announced it to a meeting of chief state school officers trumps earlier announcements to groups that are perceived to have lower status.

The real news in the press release is the naming of an assistant secretary to head the Rural Education Task Force. In a previous post, Reforming the Rural Education Task Force, I called for naming a high-ranking Department of Education official to head the task force. Naming Beto Gonzalez to lead the group is a step in the right direction.

The creation of the Center for Rural Education and the selection of Dr. Smith to head it are indeed good news for rural children. Dr. Smith lead a department team that actively participated in the National Rural Education Convention in Tucson. I was greatly encouraged by what I saw of that group.

I am a little concerned that the new Rural Center is housed in the Office of Vocational and Adult Education because it suggests that rural school improvement should focus on vocational and adult education. That seems like a rather minor issue at this point.

2005 NREA Conference

It looks like the 97th Annual Convention of the National Rural Education Association is going to be a great event. Bob Mooneyham and the program committees deserve a lot of credit for developing a program that has much to offer participants.

In my admittedly biased opinion the highlight of the convention will be the 4-hour grant-writing workshop Hobart Harmon and I will be doing on Tuesday (November 8) morning. This session is a shorter version of our grant-writing institute for rural schools and communities. With state and federal funds for schools becoming scarcer, rural schools have to be able to compete for public and private grants. Our workshop is designed specifically with rural communities in mind.

The other session I'm really looking forward to attending is the U.S. Department of Education's focus group on doing another Condition of Rural Education report. It's been over a decade since the last report and a lot has changed in rural America since then. The focus group is on Wednesday (November 9) morning.

I won't be able to attend the Research Symposium on Saturday and Sunday due to a prior commitment. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to ask some questions of the presenters. I'd like to ask Tom Farmer, Director of the National Center on Rural Education Support what his center would do with an extra $1 million a year. In an earlier post (More R&D for Rural Schools) I wrote that his center should get an extra million dollars a year and it would be good to know what we would get in return.

From the representatives from any of the regional educational laboratories, I'd like to know why over the past 5 years the labs haven't fulfilled their legal obligation to develop strategies to utilize schools in revitalizing rural communities? Based on a search of the lab's network website, it doesn't look like any products have been developed in this area.

If anyone would like to ask these questions for me, I'd be happy to post their report on Mr. Rural ED. Let me know if you'd like to do it so I can give you some additional background information.

More importantly, anyone interested in rural education should register right away for the NREA conference because it will be money well spent. Speaking of money, don't forget to bring plenty of it for the NREA Foundation Auction on Tuesday night!

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Rural Reviewers

There are new concerns about the process the U.S. Department of Education used to award the contract for the National Center on Rural Education Support. Information obtained from the Institute of Education Sciences indicate that the panel reviewing applications for the center did not include any rural education experts. This revelation raises the question of whether the panel was able to conduct a competent review of the applications for a rural education research center.

To be clear, I don't know exactly who reviewed applications for the center. I had asked for the list of reviewers but was told the Institute of Education Sciences does not identify the individuals who review particular applications or who review for particular competitions. Lynn Okagaki, Deputy Directory for Science at the Institute of Education Sciences did provide a list of everyone who served as scientific peer reviewers during fiscal year 2004.

That list included the names of 141 reviewers. Of those, only David Monk from Penn State University is recognizable as someone with substantial rural education expertise. He could not, however, have been a reviewer for the National Center on Rural Education Support because Penn State was an applicant. Ted Coladarci, Editor of the Journal of Research in Rural Education, similarly didn't recognize any other reviewers on the list having substantial rural education credentials. ("Sadly, no," he confessed.)

A reasonable conclusion is that the panel reviewing applications for the primary rural education research center lacked the expertise to make judgments pertaining to rural education issues. That's a problem! It's like having no pediatricians on a review panel for a program awarding a pediatric research center.

The department notes on its website that “to ensure a fair and competent review of all applications, program staff recruit persons who have expertise in areas pertinent to a program and from as many sources as possible.” This statement implies that not having reviewers with expertise in areas pertinent to the program creates a situation in which a review is unfair and incompetent.

To be fair to the staff at the Department of Education and the contractor that ran the review, I don’t think they purposefully left of people with rural education expertise off the panel. Rather, it probably never occurred to them that they needed some rural education expertise. Which points to the larger problem that the U.S. Department of Education has a very limited understanding of rural education issues.

More R&D for Rural Schools

Last week I received an email asking me to contact my U.S. Senators to urge them to continue funding for the Regional Educational Laboratories. I found myself torn about what to do. On one hand, the Regional Educational Laboratory system represents the U.S. Department of Education’s largest research and development effort for rural schools. In 2005, at least $16.5 million is supposed to be allocated toward issues addressing rural schools. That corresponds to a minimum of $83 million over the life of a five-year lab contract. Eliminating or reducing this funding level should be harmful to rural schools because they would have less access to products developed specifically for rural schools.

You’ll notice that I used the phrase “should put rural schools at a disadvantage” because, on the other hand, the Regional Educational Laboratory system has not produced much in the way of products designed specifically for rural school problems. The result has been a very low return on the investment. You can see my dilemma—contact my senators and urge them to support an ineffective program under the “a little is better than nothing” principle, or let them know how little rural America is benefiting from the Regional Educational Laboratory system.

I was going to exercise the safe option of doing nothing when I hit upon a compromise—contact my Senators in support of the lab system but encourage them to reallocate the funds that would go toward rural school issues. This compromise may seem contradictory given my complaints about the labs, but there are some things they do well. Rural education just isn’t one of them.

The email noted a proposal to fund the labs at $70 million in 2006. By law, at least 25 percent of that funding ($17.5 million) has to go toward issues found in rural communities. Those funds should go toward creating 4 or 5 new rural education research and development centers. The centers would develop research-based materials designed specifically to improve the educational outcomes of students and the viability of the community.

An important topic for the centers would be to find ways in which schools can work with other organizations. There are a number of organizations that have interest in child development. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services come to mind. Finding ways that schools can work with collaboratively with county extension and health departments would greatly benefit rural children and their communities.

The centers should also focus on the professional development of rural educators, developing place-based instructional materials, and local policy solutions for issues facing rural schools. There should also be a center devoted to coordinating the efforts of the all the centers. This center would also manage the dissemination of materials and information to the field. I also think the National Center on Rural Education Support should also receive an additional $1 million to fund cooperative efforts with the new development centers.

There are things the labs do very well, but the Regional Educational Laboratory System has failed miserably in its responsibilities to rural schools. It makes much more sense to reallocate the funds that are supposed to go toward rural education issues to a new group of organizations devoted to improving the educational outcomes of rural students while supporting local community development. Rural communities deserve better than what they’ve gotten under the current system. Time for a change!

A Primer on the Regional Educational Laboratories & Rural Schools

The U.S. Department of Education makes a substantial expenditure each year for research and development for issues affecting rural schools through its Regional Educational Laboratory system. In 2005 that amount is supposed to be in the neighborhood of $16.5 million, which translates into at least $83 million of the five years of the current contract. Most rural educators are unaware of the responsibilities of the labs to support rural schools and communities and the level of resources they are given to fulfill those responsibilities. Having worked at a lab for 7 years, I’ve put together a short primer on the labs and what they are supposed to be doing for rural schools.

PURPOSE:
The purpose of the Regional Educational Laboratories is to conduct applied research and development, provide technical assistance, develop multimedia educational materials and other products, and disseminate information in an effort to help others use knowledge from research and practice to improve education. They have four responsibilities. (1) Collaborate with the National Education Centers. (2) Consult with the State educational agencies and local educational agencies in the region in developing the plan for serving the region. (3) Develop strategies to utilize schools as critical components in reforming education and revitalizing rural communities in the United States. (4) Report and disseminate information on overcoming the obstacles faced by educators and schools in high poverty, urban, and rural areas. Note the specific mention of rural schools and communities in items 3 and 4.

RESOURCES:
By law, the Director of the Institute of Education Sciences" shall obligate not less than 25 percent to carry out such purpose with respect to rural areas (including schools funded by the Bureau [of Indian Affairs] which are located in rural areas). The total appropriated for the five years of the current contract is $332,357,250. The minimum amount that is supposed to go to rural schools works about to be $83 million for the entire five-year contract. Notice that $83 million is the minimum amount that is supposed to go to rural schools so it could be higher. I have tried unsuccessfully to get the actual dollars spent by the labs on rural educational issues even though the labs report it to the Institute of Education Sciences each quarter.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT:
What have taxpayers gotten in return for this investment? A search of REL Network website found only six products listed under the rural education keyword for the years 2001 through 2005. Moreover, none of the six had anything to do with strategies to utilize schools as critical components in revitalizing rural communities. To be fair, there are probably some products that are not listed on the REL Network website for one reason or another. Even then the return on investment is quite disappointing.

BOTTOM LINE:
It's pretty clear that the labs have been ineffective in conducting research and development for issues specific to rural communities. It's time to look at reallocating those dollars to better serve the rural Americans. At $16 million the Institute of Education Sciences could undertake a rural education research and development program that would complement the work of the National Center on Support of Rural Education. The Department of Education could even reduce that amount and come up with better products and services than what they have now.

NREA: A Good Return on Investment

I've spent a lot of time lately looking at how little the U.S. Department of Education does for rural communities. When I compare the resources the department is supposed to be using to support rural schools with the actual outcomes I wonder why rural educators aren't fighting mad.

The antithesis of the USDE is the National Rural Education Association. I had never really thought about all the things that NREA does for rural schools on a pretty small budget. Here's a partial list of the association's efforts on behalf of rural schools and communities:

1. The annual conference
2. The Rural Educator
3. Rural Education News
4. NREA website
5. NREA listserv
6. NREA Teacher of the Year Award
7. National Rural Education Advocacy Coalition
8. NREA Essay contest
9. Research Symposium
10. Stanley A. Brzenzski Memorial Research Award
11. NREA Mini-grant Program
12. NREA Hero Award
13. Edward W. Chance Memorial Dissertation Award
14. NREA Service Award
15. Dr. Joe Newlin Scholarship Fund
16. Grant Writing Institute
17. Legislative Forum
18. Mini-grant program
19. NREA Exemplary Practices/Programs Award
20. Howard A. Dawson Memorial Award

This list doesn't include the important advocacy work that NREA does on behalf of rural school and the encouragement it gives to its affiliates and members. The upshot is that NREA is working hard on behalf of rural schools and deserves considerable credit for those efforts. You can learn more about NREA and its activities at http://www.nrea.net/.

There are NREA two events coming up that are worthy of note. The first is the Grant Writing Institute Hobart Harmon and I are doing on May 6-7, 2005 in Oklahoma City. The Institute is designed specifically for grant seekers from rural schools and communities and provides participants with strategies and tools for developing successful grant proposals. It is designed to give participants the opportunity to apply what they learn toward preparing an actual proposal for a project they would like to have funded. Participants will leave the institute with the preliminary framework of a proposal and a resource notebook. The registration deadline is April 22, 2005.

The second event is the NREA Research Symposium on November 5-6, 2005; at the Radisson Hotel, Downtown; Tucson, Arizona. The NREA Research Symposium will precede the 97th Annual NREA Convention, which is scheduled on November 7-9, 2005. NREA is returning to a format in which research sessions are held prior to the regular conference giving participants an opportunity to engage in substantive conversations about rural education research. The deadline for submitting proposals is May 1, 2005.

The bottom line is that an NREA membership is a good investment. Let Executive Director Bob Mooneyham and the Executive Committee know how much you appreciate their efforts.