This report provides information about the educational experiences and opportunities of public school English learner (EL) students in the United States as compared to public school students overall during the 2017-18 school year (SY) based on analyses of two, large, federal datasets: the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) and the Common Core of…

This brief gives a snapshot of how school districts across the country are currently planning for fall 2020, how they are planning for contingencies of COVID-19 spread, and how this varies based on district characteristics. From August 17-21, we reviewed district websites, social media, and local news to collect data from a sample of 477 districts…

Recent headlines have brought attention to the effects that unfavorable demographic and fiscal conditions are having on postsecondary education institutions. Among those most acutely feeling the pressures are likely to be institutions located in rural communities that are seeing more rapid population declines and lagging median income. This…

The role of political factors, specifically of public opinion, in the relatively low penetration of charter schools into rural America remains unclear. We use eight years of national survey data to demonstrate that rural residents express less support for charter schools than residents of other locales do. We attribute this gap to differences in…

Across the United States, students attending rural school districts can face different obstacles than their urban counterparts, particularly rural students from households living below the federal poverty level. But how rural districts are defined can vary by federal, state, and local entity and can sometimes not capture the difficulties specific…

This brief gives an update on our nationally representative sample of school district reopening plans. This update comes at a critical time, as a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic once again forces school system leaders to rethink plans to welcome students safely to campuses, and spiking caseloads raise a new round of public health fears for…

Fourteen percent of the nation's population lives in rural communities, and one in five K-12 students attends a rural school. This is a substantial portion of the population, but it's far too often overlooked by education analysts, advocates, and policymakers. Rural communities tend to face some persistent challenges, including higher rates of…

These are the appendixes for the report, "District Changes in Student Achievement and Local Practice under Georgia's District and School Flexibility Policy." Five appendixes are included in the document: (1) About the study; (2) Data and methods; (3) Supporting analysis; (4) Survey instrument; and (5) Interview protocol. [For the full…

The purpose of this study was to examine the college enrollment and persistence rates of rural high schools in Pennsylvania; the types of postsecondary institutions in which students from such schools enroll; and the student, school, and college characteristics associated with enrollment and persistence outcomes. The study used extant data from…

The National Indian Education Study (NIES) is administered as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which was expanded to allow more in-depth reporting on the achievement and experiences of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students. It fulfills a mandate of Executive Order 13336 issued in 2004 calling for closer…

This paper examines the costs of rural schooling in South Australia from the internal allocations of resources in four country and four metropolitan schools. Case studies considered only secondary education and the differences between how metropolitan and country schools allocate resources to students; subjects; and activities such as…

This report explores the status of the teaching of psychology as a separate course on the pre-college level and examines the nature of the differences between urban-suburban and rural teachers, their courses, and their classes. One hundred sixty-two urban-suburban and 166 rural school teachers in Illinois were surveyed via questionnaires. Students…

The mental health of the only-child continues to generate interest in research literature. The present study examines the issue in China, where the one-child phenomenon is highest due to deliberate government policy. Subjects are 299 and 333 students in two high-rank high schools in urban Harebin and rural Qing an Xian, respectively (mean age =…

This report examines the results and conclusions of recent research on small and rural schools, and attempts to frame current debates over educational adequacy and financial equity in Idaho's rural school districts. Section I reports findings of recent research on school size and emphasizes the benefits of (typically rural) small schools. Most…

Analysis of data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, 1987-88, reveals that compared to metropolitan schools, nonmetropolitan schools are smaller, have fewer teachers with advanced degrees, and offer fewer advanced or remedial classes. However, smaller rural schools often provide smaller classes, more teacher attention, and a less stressful…