This research report (from the Rural Trust in conjunction with the State Technology Directors Association), details the extent and type of distance learning technologies currently in use across the U.S. and the role of state education agencies in the creation of distance learning policies, rules, and regulations.

Anne C. Lewis, columnist for KAPPAN, discusses the standards movement and the Rural School and Community Trust (formerly the Rural Challenge) standards policy statement.

This report finds that Vermont's Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1997 (Act 60) has significantly improved educational equity in the state and has achieved three main goals established by the state's Supreme Court and the Legislature: student resource equity, tax burden equity, and academic achievement equity. The findings suggest that Vermont is on the right course in the way it funds its schools. (See also the update to this report a year later, Still "A Reasonably Equal Share).

The 2004-2005 report on the progress of the first year of the Rural Civic Engagement Initiative.

This report shows that New Mexico school systems suffering from low student achievement serve students who face the greatest social and economic barriers, but receive less money to work with than do other New Mexico districts.

There are legitimate concerns about the administrative costs of running small school districts.  It has been widely assumed that the only way to reduce these costs is to achieve economies of scale by eliminating school districts through consolidation. Proposals to consolidate districts often include assurances that closing districts does not mean that schools have to close.  The idea is that we can reduce administrative costs without losing the educational benefits of small schools.

Some policymakers and other advocates of reorganizing Arkansas’ public education system have insisted that the minimum district size requirements included in Act 60 and the district closings authorized under the Omnibus Education Act are aimed at closing school districts only, for the sake of “administrative” efficiency. They argue that the forced reorganization of districts is not intended to close schools. Some tease the issue a bit, adding that at the very least it doesn’t have to happen, and in their view, probably will not happen. This analysis of the ways that reorganization has played out over the past two years strongly suggests otherwise.

The consolidation of schools and school districts is an ongoing issue in most of rural America. Each year hundreds of communities face the closure of their local school or the loss of their local school district-and the school governance positions associated with the district. State policies promoting consolidation have existed for most of the 20th and now 21st centuries. Indeed, the numbers of schools and districts in this country have been drastically reduced, despite burgeoning school populations.

An update of the earlier Assessment Monograph, this report discusses the limitations of standardized testing in evaluating student progress and offers alternative methods to assess project and place-based student work.

This policy paper offers insights and policy recommendations from studying high-poverty, but also high-performing, rural, southern schools that will change perceptions of what is possible in small, low-wealth rural settings. The report focuses on findings from five rural schools in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi and on the characteristics that the five schools shared. Among many others, each school: displayed a sense of mutual respect and shared expectation; viewed smallness as an asset; had positive, flexible and collegial leadership; and, their environments brought out -- and expected -- the best of everyone. The report was prepared for the Southern Rural High School Study Initiative, a joint venture of the Southern Governors' Association, Southern Regional Education Board, and The Rural Trust.