The challenges facing rural school districts have much in common with those facing many urban districts: lots of students living in poverty, low college-attainment rates among parents, high and growing numbers of ELL students, and difficulty attracting and retaining high-quality teachers and principals. Add the sprawling and isolated geography, weak tax base, and iffy broadband access that plague many rural districts, and we have a daunting set of barriers to the goal of students leaving high school fully ready for their next step in life. As Paul Hill put it recently, if America neglects its rural schools, nobody wins.
Fortunately, according to a new report from Battelle for Kids and Education Northwest, America’s rural schools are not standing idly by. The report looks at the work of rural education collaboratives (RECs), which have been formed across the country in an effort to respond to these very challenges. While there seems to be no handy list—nor a single definition—of such organizations, the authors know what they’re not looking for: top-down collaborations, which they eschew in favor of “informal and organic collaborative structures that are more peer-to-peer and network based.” The metrics they use to identify the right sort of RECs are partnerships that are: 1) committed to a common purpose that creates value for rural students and reaches beyond the missions of individual members; 2) run through a member-led governance structure; 3) focused on improving practice by establishing real solutions to defined educational opportunity problems at significant scale; and 4) clear about intended outcomes and metrics of success.
RECs are characterized as positive forces for innovation in their regions and necessary engines for their districts to access burgeoning opportunities. Already, RECs have helped their participating schools leverage dual enrollment, digital learning, standards-based education, more personalized academic tracks, and career advising to give their students the best possible education given geographic and economic constraints. While education reformers have been touting the promise of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) for the success of urban students, rural districts are hoping for the same boost. “ESSA ushers in an era that offers new opportunities and resources for rural schools to pursue solutions that work for them,” the authors note. RECs are seen as avenues for investment in areas of the country that are often seen only as drags on the national economy, when they are seen at all.
The report serves up case studies of four RECs (and looks generally at seventeen RECs in sixteen states) that illustrate different approaches to their regions’ unique concerns. Those interested are encouraged to check out the Vermont Rural Partnership, the Eastern Shore of Maryland Educational Consortium, and the Northwest Rural Innovation and Student Engagement (NW RISE) Network. A taste of what you will discover in these case studies can be found in Fordham’s home state of Ohio.
The Ohio Appalachian Collaborative (OAC) was established in 2010 with the integral participation of Battelle for Kids itself. OAC currently serves twenty-seven districts with forty-eight thousand students. The case study focuses on grants received by OAC (Race to the Top, Teacher Incentive Fund, and Straight A Fund innovation grants) and on the collaborative’s major focus: college and career readiness. In three years between 2012 and 2015, OAC reported an 85 percent increase in student participation in dual enrollment courses, a six-fold increase in the number of dual enrollment courses available, and a doubling of the number of dual-enrollment credentialed teachers at the high school level. Proof of the success of Ohio’s effort (and the others) is still to come, but these are solid numbers that urban districts in the Buckeye State would love to have.
It is heartening to think that education reforms at the national level may have a positive effect on both urban and rural students in poverty, despite their differing challenges.
SOURCE: “Generating Opportunity and Prosperity: The Promise of Rural Education Collaboratives,” Battelle for Kids (January, 2016).
