The four issues of "Skole" published in 1995 include articles examining alternatives to public education and the value of free schools. Free schools offer an unstructured curriculum in which comparisons between students are eliminated and students are empowered to be responsible for their learning. Proponents of this approach to…

This paper examines the impact of the (British) National Curriculum on classroom practices and range of curriculum in small rural elementary schools with varying involvement in school clusters. Small schools (fewer than 100 students) cost more per student and have been under threat for several decades in England as a "rural deficiency…

Small rural school districts constitute a major portion of the public elementary and secondary sector of education. Using information from the Common Core of Data, this report focuses on the approximately 4,000 small rural school districts operating since 1986-87; their status in 1993-94; and how they changed each year during that 7-year period,…

As late as 1913, half of U.S. schoolchildren were enrolled in the country's 212,000 one-room schools--the heart of American education. Although only about 428 of these schools remain in use as of 1994, the country school continues to be a powerful cultural symbol. The first section of this book examines country schools' educational and cultural…

This book aims to help parents, community members, and educators find resources, design school options, and take action together to improve small rural schools in ways that meet community and student needs. Chapter 1 discusses the virtues of smallness, outlines basic assumptions about the role and nature of good education, examines the…

This report presents data comparing budgets, levies, and enrollments of small, rural schools (Class "C") in Montana for fiscal year 1994-95. The average enrollment of 56 elementary schools was 136 students; the average enrollment of 56 high schools was 70 students. The average total enrollment of Class "C" schools was 190…

A study was undertaken in 16 rural New York school districts to determine the feasibility of sharing noninstructional services as an avenue to achieving cost savings and enhanced services. The districts involved were within the Delaware/Chenango/Madison/Otsego BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services) in a rural mountainous region of…

This practicum was designed to utilize a shared decision making (SDM) committee model as a mechanism through which a long-range, comprehensive computer technology plan would be developed for a Jackman (Maine) school system. On-site research coupled with an extensive review of current literature produced a finding that long-range technology…

This proceedings summarizes a conference sponsored by the Center for Rural Education and Small Schools at Kansas State University. Included are the keynote speech and abstracts of 46 conference presentations. The keynote speech, "Invisible and Silent along the Blue Highways," by Patricia A. Schmuck, examines problems of ethnic, racial, and gender…

This paper describes two pilot programs that are developing networks among rural New Zealand schools to address the educational isolation of students. A program located in the South Island consists of a consortium of six small rural high schools using distance education technology to offer an expanded curriculum to rural students. The goal of the…

This book provides information and guidance to rural community members for improving their schools through community involvement. It encourages new ways of thinking about the purposes of education, the roles of schools, and methods of teaching and learning. After establishing the purpose and need for community involvement in rural small schools,…

This small-school vocational education research project, conducted during the 1981-82 school year in Washington State, attempted to develop alternative vocational program delivery and funding strategies for small high school districts. A statewide review committee and two principal investigators conducted national and statewide research to…

The study compared nationwide research findings about the districts, superintendents, teachers, programs, and student performance in 642 public school districts with an enrollment of 900 or less (defined as small/rural) to data from a random sample of school districts of similar size in North Dakota. Data were collected from superintendents by…

Scheduled for implementation in 1985, Student Excellence through Educational Development of Staff (SEEDS) is a 3-year cooperative partnership between four rural Southwest Iowa school districts to provide comprehensive, long-term staff development that promises to heighten student achievement through increasing instructional/supervision skills of…

This series of newspaper articles evaluates North Carolina's schools and establishes a relationship between the state's rural poverty and low student achievement levels. Test scores in 1988 are consistently low in all but four of the poorest rural counties. Small schools are disappearing from rural areas. Large schools can offer students more…