Rural Schools Have Fewer External Supports
It's no surprise to people who work in rural schools that they receive fewer supports in the form of funding, partnerships, and volunteers than other types of schools. Most rural schools simply don't have the resources in or near their communities that larger towns and cities have.
But the amount of the difference might surprise. And the fact that rural schools seem to be much less likely to get support from post-secondary institutions and regional and national foundations helps explain some of the challenges these schools face. It also points up a glaring inequity.
This difference in external supports is one of the themes that emerges in a survey of school-community partnerships conducted by DeHavilland Associates in collaboration with the National School Foundation Association. The survey report, Community/School Partnerships: A National Survey, found that rural schools depend more heavily on the support of local booster clubs than urban or suburban schools, and they are slightly more likely than urban schools--and less likely than suburban schools--to report receiving support from parent organizations.
But rural schools are much less likely to receive support from business coalitions, nonprofits, and postsecondary institutions than suburban or urban schools. For example, only 7.3% of rural schools received support from regional and national nonprofits compared to 15.1% of suburban schools and 25% of urban schools. And only 2.9% of rural schools reported receiving nonprofit volunteers, compared to 5.3% for suburban schools and 12.9% for urban schools.
Among the biggest gaps were in supports from postsecondary institutions. Only 3.7% of rural schools reported receiving funding from colleges and universities and only 4.5% reported receiving volunteers. By contrast, 9.1% of urban schools and 9.9% of suburban schools reported receiving funding from post-secondary institutions, and 13.8% of suburban and 24.2% of urban schools reported receiving post-secondary volunteers.
Further, the monetary value of partnerships is much lower for rural schools—with more than half of rural schools receiving support valued at less than $25,000.