Five articles about education service agencies (ESAs) serving rural schools yield five insights. Many rural systems owe their existence to ESA support. ESAs provide critical technology support. States should encourage school district collaboration. Inclusion of postsecondary institutional representatives in ESAs is an important step towards a…

Identifies nine major state educational strategies with specially targeted rural assistance goals. Categorizes the strategies according to their primary intent and state policy instruments used in implementation. Suggests that this classification will further the assessment of the equity, adequacy, responsiveness, and appropriateness of the…

State-endorsed education service agency (ESA) type organizations are found in 26 state school systems, 23 of which have a complete statewide network serving all local districts. These organizations promote collaboration among local school districts in substate regions or serve as a conduit for implementation of state initiatives. This report…

Thanks to the economies of scale inherent in networks of education services agencies (ESAs), these agencies can provide small rural schools with access to programs, services, and technical assistance that otherwise might be unavailable. Typical core services of ESAs, historic roots, evaluation of ESAs in Iowa and Texas, and trends in ESA funding…

A comprehensive descriptive study of educational service agencies (ESAs), this project sought to provide an initial database on ESAs that could support future inquiry, to assemble information on present practice that could be used by states to guide the formation of new ESA systems or the modification of existing ones, and to develop an improved…

This book examines the role of the educational service agency (ESA) in the process of enabling and facilitating rural school improvement. The introductory chapter discusses the continuing significance of rural education, service to rural districts as an explicit reason for establishing ESAs, and the characteristics of several types of ESAs.…

Developing the themes presented in sections I and II, a model is presented for the development of a multicounty regional educational service agency for a selected area of the State, comprising seven east central Iowa county school systems. Considered as a guide for planning, the model is described in seven chapters, including an introductory…

This paper presents a description of the emerging middle echelon unit of school government--the Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA). The document defines RESA's as those offices of school government sandwiched between State and local school district levels and considers the development of the regional educational service agency concept in…

This report emphasizes the major organizational and program patterns of the regional education service agencies (RESAs) operating in Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan, New York, and Oregon. The State laws governing RESA units and the units' organizational patterns and their…