High Speed Internet Access

High speed internet access is no longer a luxury for rural communities wanting to participate in the knowledge economy. Voters in Timnath, Colorado have voted to offer free wireless internet to all 223 residents. A farming community between Ft. Collins and Windsor, Timnath lies in the path of impending growth that is being seen alll along the I-25 corridor in Colorado. An article in today's Denver Post reports Mayor Donna Benson hopes the free service will create economic growth that will eventually pay for the service.

Residents and businesses in Eads, Colorado, a town of 850 located in southeast Colorado also have access to wireless internet through Plains Network Services. Owner Jeanne Sorenson saw a need for the service and people have responsed. For those unfamiliar with Colorado it's worth noting that Ead's situation is diffenent from Timnath in that it's not in a high growth area.

As more rural communities get wireless access the opportunities increase for rural Americans to participate in the Knowledge Economy. Economic sustainability for many communities will require people with education levels higher than ever before. Rural schools should consider these new opportunities in thinking about their instructional programs.

Immigration Issues in Rural America

Immigration has been a hot issue in the news. Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen offers a perspective from rural Colorado. Among the issues, are language and cultural differences and the effects these new immigrants have on the local schools and economy.

Before going any further I should point out that Mr. Quillen is refering to the problem of suburban immigration to rural America. Some excerpts:

Language Differences

For one thing, there are language problems. They do not speak as we do. Few of them know a "widowmaker jack" from a "come-along," or even a "mule" from a "burro. If you refer to "my beater," they think you're talking about a kitchen tool rather than your vehicle. And when they speak, we have trouble understanding that a "BlackBerry" is an electronic device rather than something to eat.

Food Differences

It used to be simple to order "meat and potatoes" as in "burger and fries" or "sausage and hash browns" or "sirloin and baked." Now those items are a small portion of the menu if they're there at all. The immigrants have encouraged our eateries to offer organic muffins for breakfast, garden-fresh salads for lunch and braised boneless free-range skinless chicken breasts for dinner. Immigration has made it hard to find real food here, because these people insist on keeping their bizarre culture after moving to our country.

Economic Effects

My plumber recently explained that he was getting out of the repair end of the business. "I can work on clean, new construction for $50 an hour," he explained, "or crawl around in the cramped grungy cellars in the old part of town for half that. Which would you rather do?" Thus do the immigrants burden the local economy, by forcing long-time residents to pay more not just for plumbers, but also for carpenters, glaziers, masons, roofers, electricians, auto mechanics and computer technicians.

Most rural communities have to decide between two types of death. One caused by an out-migration and another caused by the in-migration of suburbanites. It's hard to say which choice is better.

NCES Locale Code Revision

The National Center for Education Statistics has released its revised 8-category locale code classification system. The new system incorporates changes in the Office of Management and Budget’s definition of “rural” that were adopted for the 2000 Decennial Census. At first glance this new classification scheme appears to be an improvement.

Locale codes are measures of a school’s location relative to populous areas. Every U.S. school is identified into one 8 categories that range from large city to rural. The new urban-centric locale codes follow the same logic as the original locale code system, but prioritize population size and distance from an urbanized area. They include four basic categories (city, suburban, town, rural) each of which is subdivided by either size or distance from an urbanized area.

Users can download a new file that includes geocoding information for 100,593 public schools reported on the Common Core of Data School Universe Survey for the 2003-04 school year. The information includes the NCES school identification code; latitude and longitude of the reported address; and two locale codes. I've never seen anyone make use of the latitude and longitude data so I'm hoping someone will figure out a project soon.

Charateristics of Rural School Districts

A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics introduces data from the fifth administration of the School and Staffing Survey (SASS). It is the most extensive sample survey of teachers and administrators in the U.S. Characteristics of Schools, Districts, Teachers, Principals, and School Libraries in the United States: 2003-04 Schools and Staffing Survey has 47 data tables, all of which break out statistics on rural/small town districts. The report includes a relatively small number of findings regarding rural/small town districts that are are included below. The most interesting finding is that a higher percent of rural/small town principals have teaching responsibilities in comparison to their non-rural counterparts.

Extended-day Programs

Forty-seven percent of public schools reported having extended-day programs providing instruction beyond the normal school day for students who needed academic assistance. Public schools located in central city locations were more likely to have this program (58 percent) than schools located in urban fringe/large towns (42 percent) or rural/small towns (45 percent). p. 3

Temporary Buildings

Thirty-two percent of public schools reported having one or more temporary buildings, and 9 percent of public schools reported an enrollment that exceeded the capacity of their permanent and temporary buildings. Public schools in rural areas were less likely to have temporary buildings (21 percent) than schools in urban fringe/large towns (34 percent) or central city locations (38 percent). The percentage of schools having temporary buildings in urban fringe/large towns was measurably different from the percentage of schools in central city locations. p.4

Teacher Experience

Eighteen percent of public school teachers had 3 or fewer years of full-time teaching experience, and 82 percent reported having 4 or more years of full-time teaching experience. Among public schools, there was a smaller percentage of teachers with 3 or fewer years of full-time teaching experience in rural/small town communities (15 percent) than the percentage of teachers with 3 or fewer years experience teaching in central cities (20 percent). There was no measurable difference between the percentage of teachers with 3 or fewer years experience teaching in urban fringe/large towns (18 percent) compared to central city or rural/small town communities. p.4

Principals with Teaching Duties

Twenty-eight percent of public school principals were currently teaching in addition to serving as principal. Principals of public schools located in rural/small town locations were more likely to be teaching in addition to serving as principal (38 percent), compared to principals of public schools in urban fringe/large town (22 percent) or central city locations (16 percent). There was no measurable difference in the percentage of principals who were teaching in public schools in urban fringe/large towns as compared to principals of public schools in central city locations. p.5

REL Contracts Announced

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education issued a press release announcing that the department had awarded new 5-year contracts to 10 Regional Educational Laboratories. There is some information in the announcement that I didn't have when I posted Four Labs Flip on Tuesday.

The comments of Institute of Education Sciences Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst are of interest. He noted that the labs "provide a critical link between research and practice." He added, "I'm pleased with the quality of the 10 organizations that have won the competition. We look forward to a very productive relationship as we work to meet the research needs of those engaged in improving the effectiveness of education."

The other piece of information is the total amount of each contract for the next five years. To get a sense of how much research the labs are supposed to do on issues affecting rural schools use the following calculation. (1) Add up the contract amounts for all the labs. (2) Multiple the sum by 25% since IES is required to make sure that a quarter of the labs work focuse on issues affecting rural communities. (3) Divide the product by 5 to get the amount the ten labs collectively are supposed to allocate toward rural issues each year. Could someone with a calculator post the answer for us?

AERA Rural Education SIG Sessions

The Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association is being held April 7 - 11 in San Francisco. The sessions sponsored by the Rural Education Special Interest Group are listed below. Users can do an online search of the program to find additional rural education sessions. Check the program for the most up to date information.

Saturday, April 8, 9:05am - 9:45am
Paper Discussion Session
Rural Education SIG
Moscone Center West / 3rd Floor
Rountable 24
Abstract: These papers center on the roleof identity formation in students' ways of life and interpretation of their learning world.

Session Participants:
Chair: David M. Callejo-Perez (West Virginia University)
Discussant: Kalie R. Kossar (West Virginia University)

Gender, Family Help, and Homework Management Reported by Rural Middle-School Students. Jianzhong Xu (Mississippi State University), Lyn Corno (Teachers College, Columbia University)

Patterns of Adjustment During the Transition From Middle to High School in Rural African-American Youth. Dylan Robertson (Center for Developmental Science), Tom Farmer (The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Matthew J. Irvin (The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Jana Thompson (Center for Developmental Science)

Spatial and Sociodemographic Patterns of Student Mobility. Kai A. Schafft (The Pennsylvania State University)

Student-Led Rural Community Dialogues: Discovering and Reinventing Students’ Place.
Matthew C. Calvert (University of Wisconsin-Extension), Cynthia Taines (University of Wisconsin - Madison)

The Mystery of Size: School-District Size, Curriculum Offerings, and Student Achievement in Rural Pennsylvania. Yi Gong (Keene State College), Wenfan Yan (Indiana University of Pennsylvania)

Full Circle: A Case Study of the Consolidation, Closing, Restoration, and Reopening of Barnardsville Elementary School. Gail D. Buckner (Western Carolina University), Mary Jean R. Herzog (Western Carolina University)

An Inquiry Into Achievement Differences: Traditional and Virtual High-School Courses.
Dennis M. Mulcahy (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Michael Kristopher Barbour (The University of Georgia)

Monday, April 10, 8:15am - 10:15am
Research on Rural Education: Multiple Perspectives in the United States and Abroad
Rural Education SIG
Moscone Center South / Mezzanine Level East, Room 222
Abstract: This session combines papers dealing with research on rural education in the US and abroad; creating possibilities for comparative studies in education.

Session Participants:
Chair: Edmund T. Hamann (University of Nebraska)
Discussant: Aimee A. Howley (Ohio University)

Analysis of Distance Education Use in Rural Schools. Wallace Hannum (The University of North Carolina), Tom Farmer (The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), William R. Veal (College of Charleston), Jim Barber (The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Jonathan Banks (The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Michelle Sylva (The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill)

Mix and Match or Mismatch: High-Ability Students and Rural Schools in an Australian Context. Margaret M. Plunkett (Monash University-Gippsland), Monique Y. Osborn (Monash University)

School of the Air in Australia: From Radio to Satellite. Stephen J. Crump (University of Newcastle)

School Size and the “Power Rating” of Poverty: Substantive Finding or Statistical Artifact? Theodore Coladarci (The University of Maine)

The Influence of Rurality on Teachers' Perceptions of Their Status in English Elementary Schools. Linda M. Hargreaves (Cambridge University), Anthony Pell (Leicester University)

Monday, April 10: 4:05pm - 6:05pm
Rural Education: Rethinking the Possibilities Remove from My Schedule
SIG-Rural Education
Moscone Center South / Mezzanine Level East, Room 224
Abstract: This paper session seeks to expand research about rural education by examining issues and problems (diversity and gender identity) not usually associated with rural communities.

Session Participants:
Chair: Shana Pate (North Texas State University)
Discussant: Sharon L. Spall (Western Kentucky University)

What Can I Learn From Rural Black Family Pedagogy? Sherick A. Hughes (The University of Toledo)

Saving the Children of the Poor in Rural Schools. Aimee A. Howley (Ohio University), Caitlin Howley (AEL, Inc.), Craig B. Howley (Ohio University)

The Development of Secondary-School/Community Partnerships for a College-Going Culture in Diverse, Rural Schools: What Matters? Betty Alford (Stephen F. Austin State University), Peggy B. Gill (The University of Texas at Tyler)

What Makes Effective Rural School Teachers? Andrea M. Lachance (The State University of New York-Cortland)

Teacher Resources in High-Need Rural Schools in Texas. Debra H. Jones (Southwest Educational Development Laboratory), Celeste Alexander (Southwest Educational Development Laboratory), Michael Vaden-Kiernan (Southwest Educational Development Laboratory), Zena H. Rudo (Southwest Educational Development Laboratory)

State Funding for Out-of-State Rural Students

By Rural School Blogger (AKA Stephen Bohrer)

I understand from talking to Paula Stephenson, director of the Colorado Rural Schools Caucus, that an amendment to the Colorado school finance bill that passed out of the Colorado House of Representatives may have begun as a way to close a charter school in northwest Colorado that was predominately composed of students from Utah. One thing led to another, and we have a bill that if passed would make districts ineligible to receive state aid for students from adjoining states.

I understand there are 172 students from adjoining states attending Colorado schools. Colorado probably has as many students attending schools across the state line as come into the state. Does anyone know how many Colorado kids attend out of state? Does the legislature want to start a school finance war with other states that are educating Colorado students? School districts touching Colorado borders are all rural and small. Would we even have to talk about this if Denver touched a border of another state?

Rural schools throughout the country are experiencing declining enrollment and now someone has decided it is not fair for Colorado taxpayers to educate students from other states, regardless of how close they may live to our schools or perceive the quality of our programs. I thought we were here to educate all Americans. Many of our most ardent bashers talk of choice as if that alone were sufficient to provide an adequate education. Now the same party talking choice wants to deny students from Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas from expressing their choice by enrolling in Colorado schools.

For a specific example, Peetz is 2.5 miles south of the Nebraska border. The school there enrolls 32 Nebraska students out of a total student count of 120. My district, Holyoke, has nine Nebraska students attending our district of 600 students. We could survive the loss of $56,000 that the students represent, but what will Peetz do by August when they stand to lose 26% of their students, and budget?

How might this apply to students living in an adjoining state, but in a district that does not adjoin the Colorado district? How would this apply to foreign exchange students? How would this apply to dual home families (Celebrities or CEOs) whose child spends part of the year (October 1 “count day” for instance) in Colorado, but the rest of the year in another state, adjoining or not?

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. It does not appear the state legislators are hearing his message. This anti-rural school amendment to the school finance act is mean spirited and tasteless. Perhaps the senator can bring his bully pulpit to the Colorado State Capital and teach those elected to represent us that rural schools count too.

Mr. Rural ED has Moved

Mr. Rural ED has moved to a new weblog service. The new service is more powerful allowing for multiple authors and more flexibility in design. The new site also allows users to subscribe to an RSS news feed of the blog. Visit the new home of Mr. Rural ED at http://mrruraled.typepad.com/

Four Labs Flip

The U.S. Department of Education has annouced that four of the ten regional educational laboratories have been awarded to new organizations. The RELs constitute the largest investment by the federal government into rural education research.

The new lab contract holders are:

The CNA Corporation replaces Edvantia—formerly AEL (Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia).

Education Development Center, Inc replaces Laboratory at Brown (LAB) (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands).

Edvance Research, Inc replaces Southwest Education Development Laboratory (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas).

The Pennsylvania State University replaces Laboratory for Student Success (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC).

Labs successfully defending their contracts are:

Learning Point Associates serving Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning serving Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming.

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory serving Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.

Pacific Resources for Education and Learning serving American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap), Guam, Hawaii, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau).

University of North Carolina at Greensboro serving Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

WestEd serving Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah.

The Regional Educational Laboratory program is located in the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences.

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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"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."
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"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.