The Investing in Innovation (i3) program is a U.S. Department of Education competitive grant program supporting innovation in public schools. To encourage projects focusing on rural education in its first round of grants in 2010 the Department offered two bonus points in the scoring system for "projects that would implement innovative practices,…

This report describes, on a number of measures, the challenges facing low-wealth rural school districts in eastern North Carolina as they relate to issues of teacher quality and ensuring that students have a good teacher in each classroom. It describes five strategies that are being used in rural areas throughout the country to respond to these…

Over the past several decades West Virginia has closed scores of small, locally-based schools (primarily high schools), as part of district-level consolidation. These consolidations have affected families and students in numerous ways. Most notably, students living in outlying towns are now required to travel much longer distances to reach…

For those rural schools and communities across the country facing declining student enrollment, there are no easy answers. But there are steps policymakers and communities can take to help cushion the negative impact of declining enrollment on schools to ensure that "no child left behind" also means "no place left behind." This report details 20…

Current means of determining the level of state education funding have denied millions of the nation's children access to a quality education by not providing schools with the resources they need to properly educate all children. It has also created and perpetuated wide gaps in education funding between wealthy and poor school districts. The…

The Southern Rural High School Study Initiative seeks to identify high performing rural high schools in the South, engage education leaders in the region in analyzing the challenges faced by these schools and consider the public policies that might serve to transfer the lessons and strategies used by these schools to other small rural high schools…

The National Park System (NPS) offers a wealth of learning opportunities outside the classroom. The NPS is reaching out to educators nationwide to enrich student learning with the power of place, using public lands as classrooms where students can view historic artifacts and structures and interact with the natural world. Programs at …

Over four milliion children go to public schools in Texas; of these, almost half a million (474,000) students attend school in rural areas. Thirty-six percent of rural Texas students are members of a minority group, 46% are poor, and more than 31,000 students in rural Texas do not speak English well. These are Texas-style large numbers that begin…

After nearly two centuries of denial within Western education institutions, the indigenous knowledge systems of Alaska's Natives are being recaptured through the work of the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative. These knowledge systems, coupled with the best of Western science, form the foundation for a new type of education--one that is place-based,…