Rural Matters

A rule proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will reduce schools’ ability to access federal help to serve low-income students who receive special education services at school. More information is below. You can read the proposed changes and comment on them at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. (Rule CMS-2287-P) Deadline is tomorrow!

Under the proposed rule, schools would not be able to receive payments for “administrative” services or for most transportation provided to students in special education whose families are eligible for Medicaid.

In addition to cutting reimbursements for transportation to and from school, to school activities, and to outside therapeutic providers, the cuts would also affect administrative services such as outreach to families, referrals, or training for staff who work with these students. In addition, districts would not be able to use these funds for expanded physical, occupational and speech therapy programs for students, services which many students would not otherwise receive.

The changes are intended to meet the President’s budget goals and would cut $3.6 billion over five years. The reduction would force districts to reduce services to low-income students and/or pay for the services from the district’s general funds, which many districts find are increasingly strapped by other demands and requirements.

It is important to note that the rule change would not affect payments for direct medical services provided in schools to children who qualify through Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

Apart from the proposed cuts to Medicaid reimbursements for schools, however, the President’s budget also proposes additional cuts in federal funding for schools through IDEA. IDEA is the primary federal funding mechanism for supporting students who receive special education services at school. IDEA was authorized to provide 40% of funding for students with special needs in public schools. The Act has never been funded at that level, and the proposed Medicaid cuts would put IDEA funding at only 16%.

The Medicaid cuts are being carried out through an administrative process called a rule change. The public is allowed to comment on such rule changes, but the deadline is nearly here – it is November 6. To read the proposed rule, visit www.cms.hhs.gov/eRulemaking. You can also submit your comments electronically at the site -- scroll down to CMA-2287-P for this particular rule. Comments do not have to be formally composed.

You can read more about the proposed changes at:

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/392837.html

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/10/21/news/top_stories/19_30_6110_20_07.txt

Posted by Robin Lambert at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Commentary on School Choice in South Carolina

This article also appeared in The Times and Democrat,
in Orangeburg, South Carolina on August 30, 2007.

Resting in their heavenly repose, South Carolina's civil rights pioneers of the 1930s and 1940s must be scratching their heads. A prominent African-American state senator, also a Democrat and minister, says many of his generational peers are longing for the days of racially segregated schools. Another minister says most African-American children "fared better when we were segregated."

These leaders are understandably frustrated. Too many children are not reaping the academic gains that African-Americans hoped would follow public school desegregation. On last year's state achievement test, more than 40,000 African-American students in grades three through eight scored "Below Basic" in English/Language Arts. An average of 60 percent of all African-American students in third through eighth grade performed at the Below Basic level in science.

There is some good news. Thousands of African-American students are performing well, scoring at the highest levels, "Proficient" or "Advanced," on the state test. However, thousands more have the unrealized potential to do so.

Proposals to solve students' academic problems abound, but many are simplistic. South Carolina has long favored such approaches in public policy. Human bondage would fuel economic development. Secession would free South Carolina of the federal yoke. Racial oppression and segregation would preserve "our way of life." Low taxes would attract industry. Providing a "minimally adequate education" will secure the state's future.

Now comes school choice...

Continue reading "GUEST AUTHOR: Hayes Mizell" »

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Status of Education in Rural America, a new report from the National Center on Education Statistics (NCES) has some pretty interesting information about rural schools.

For example, rural students face more challenges related to college access and participation than students in any other locale. High-poverty rural schools spend LESS per pupil than high-poverty urban schools and less than most other rural schools.

And, "remote" rural schools -- those that are more than 35 miles from a city and more than 10 miles from a town -- have higher rates of poverty than many urban schools. In fact, African American and American Indian/Native Alaskan students who attend remote rural schools are more likely to attend a high poverty school than are their peers in cities.

Despite these challenges, remote rural schools have higher averaged freshman graduation rates than all other locales except suburbs, which they equal.

But you wouldn’t learn this information from most news reports. Those tend to focus on how rural is "in the middle," doing better on most indicators than cities and not as well as suburbs.

That's because news coverage has focused mainly on the rural "averages" highlighted in the report's own summary.

The reality, however, is that “rural” is highly variable. Rural places differ from one another more dramatically and on more dimensions than most suburbs or cities.

Some rural schools in affluent communities have plenty of resources, long histories of public support, and lots of opportunity. In short, they skew up the rural averages.

On the other hand, there are hundreds of struggling rural districts that face poverty rates as high or higher than most of the nation’s poorest urban districts (see "The 'Rural 800' Districts"), and many have long-standing histories of political and social struggle. Yet these poor rural districts have even fewer financial and municipal resources than districts in most large cities, and they get less attention.

When indicators for the best-resourced rural schools are averaged with those for the most challenged schools, the result reveals little about either school setting. And the averages divert attention from real needs. And from real possibilities in rural schools, including struggling ones.

So what does the report have to say about rural schools that is revealing and important?

Continue reading "Rural Schools—Not So Much—In the Middle" »

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The oldest African American school known to still be standing in Virginia is being restored thanks to Frank Agnew, resident of Fieldale in Henry County.

Rock Run School was built in the 1880s by local African American residents; it educated students until the mid-1950s.

Agnew owns the building and plans to make it available to community residents for local functions. He spends about 20-25 hours each week on the preservation effort and has raised more than $30,000 in donated labor and materials from the community in addition to a $10,000 grant from the Henry County Preservation Fund.

Agnew’s work, and especially the care he has taken to restore the building’s beauty, has been praised by local residents and public officials alike. Many local residents are also thrilled that this important community landmark will again be a functional gathering place.

The building serves as an important landmark beyond the community as well. Thousands of similar schools were built by African Americans after the Civil War. (It’s a myth that most such schools were established by white missionaries or philanthropists; in truth, missionaries generally arrived to find that African American residents had already established schools in their communities, and philanthropists usually supplemented community-based efforts.)

Many of these schools were left to crumble in the 1950s and 1960s when most Southern counties built new, usually consolidated, schools for African Americans in an attempt to demonstrate that they provided equal educational opportunities in segregated schools. These efforts also tended to centralize authority and strip communities of much of their influence over schools.

Rock Run School is also recognized as an important architectural landmark. At several different times the community built additions to the original building in order to accommodate expanding functions and additional grades. Each addition has been recognized as example of best construction practices of its historical period.

You can see a photo and read more about Frank Agnew and the Rock Run School in the Martinsville Bulletin.

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Nominate your school's best rural teacher!

Here's an opporttunity from the National Rural Education Association (NREA) to showcase a committed talented teacher in your rural school.

NREA is taking nominations for 2007 National Rural Teacher of the Year. Applications are open through May 31. The winner will be recognized in November at the NREA Convention and will receive a $2,000 honorarium. The teacher’s school district will also receive $1,000 toward the purchase of school supplies and instructional materials.

Continue reading "NREA Rural Teacher of the Year Applications" »

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RURAL SCHOOLS

Community Partnerships. The “Community Schools” model, like the Stevenson-YMCA Community School in Long Beach, California, is a model that encourages schools that provides a range of family and social services--at the school, usually during and after school hours. Such arrangements are often a more likely option in urban areas where there is a concentration of government and social services. But the idea that the school would be the center of the community and that the school would help address a variety of needs is one with long and deep roots in rural areas as well. Unfortunately, rural schools are less likely to receive support from institutional partners, nonprofit foundations, and business coalitions than urban and suburban schools. (See Rural Matters "Rural Schools Have Fewer Supports.") That does not mean, however, that rural schools cannot and do not form important partnerships in their own communities. The stories of six rural schools that have formed mutually beneficial partnerships with their own communities are featured in Rural Policy Matters, April 2006.

Student Engagement. Students in 26 states have reported on their levels of engagement at school in the 2006 High School Survey of Student Engagement. Many students feel that at least one adult at school knows and cares about them. But a majority of students feel bored almost every day, and most want more opportunities for relationships and for active learning opportunities. Read the Rural Matters take on the survey results here.

Continue reading "Rural and Small Schools-In The News" »

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Results of an annual survey of student engagement in high school are in and the results offer lots of food for thought. Many students report that they identify with their school and are engaged in school activities and curriculum. But most students also report that they are bored in school, and many feel disconnected from adults in the school and do not think that their opinions or experiences will matter to school staff. Low-income students, students of color, students in regular and low-track classes, and students in upper grades are less likely to report high levels of engagement than other students.

“Voices of Students on Engagement," which you read here and here, was recently released by Indiana University’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy.

Early in the introduction, the report notes that, “Engagement is about relationship; engagement is not a solo activity.”

This statement belongs in the category of observations that are so simple and so profound that they’re easy to dismiss out-of-hand, as if nothing else is possible. But relationships in high school don’t occur by magic and engagement doesn’t happen because the sun shines. So it’s worth paying attention to this report and what students say about their own engagement at school.

Continue reading "Results of High School Engagement Survey" »

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Two small rural high schools in Union County, South Carolina are likely in their last year of existence, as soon as a recent school board decision to consolidate becomes final. Even though over 700 Jonesville High and Lockhart School supporters jammed into public meetings to plead for their schools – especially notable because Lockhart has 120 students and Jonesville has 240 – the board voted 7-2 to consolidate the schools into Union High School, which has 1000 students. The two smaller schools lived under threat of consolidation for years, and successfully fought off efforts to close them until just these last few weeks. How did this happen?

Continue reading "Consolidation in One South Carolina District: More Dollars = Less Sense?" »

Posted by Amanda Adler at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

RURAL SCHOOLS

Rural Schools Have Fewer External Supports Than Other Schools. Rural schools are much less likely than urban and suburban schools to have a variety of school partnerships that provide support, funding, and volunteers. A survey of school-community partnerships by DeHavilland Associates (in collaboration with the National School Foundation Association) found that rural schools depend more heavily on the support of local booster clubs than urban or suburban schools, but are much less likely to receive support from business coalitions, non-profits, and post-secondary institutions. Read the survey report, Community/School Partnerships: A National Survey, and the Rural Matters commentary about it.

Online Teacher Training. The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded a $3 million grant to Western Governors University (WGU) to develop a model for web-based rural teacher education and to provide scholarships up to $7,500 for qualified students to become math and science teachers in rural schools. The program was designed, in part, to assist rural educators who live a long way from a traditional college to obtain full certification.

WGU was founded four years ago by governors of 19 western states to offer online programs. It currently provides teacher certification programs at the bachelor’s and master’s levels as well as programs for people with a degree who want to become certified.

Continue reading "Rural and Small Schools--In The News" »

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FACILITIES

Small schools, rural schools, and schools in the central region of the country are more likely to be under-enrolled and less likely to be over-crowded than other schools. They are also the least likely to have portable (temporary) buildings, although small schools that have portables are more likely than other schools to have troubles with the temporary buildings that interfere with instruction. The National Center for Education Statistics has released a report, Public School Principals Report on Their School Facilities: Fall 2005 that provides information on the condition of school buildings.

The report finds that schools with “percent minority enrollment” of more than 50% and schools where at least 75% of students quality for free or reduced-price lunch are more likely to have facilities problems than other schools. The most common environmental problems for all types of schools tend to be related to air-conditioning and ventilation.

SMALL URBAN SCHOOLS

A recent study of 14 small New York City high schools, all of which were started with support from the Gates Foundation, found that the schools had much higher rates of attendance and graduation than large schools and that a high percentage of students are attending college. You can read the report, developed by WestEd, here.

Continue reading "Rural and Small Schools--In The News" »

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A few years ago reformers in a number of big American cities began calling for a return to the K-8 school. Such schools were once the norm in many rural and urban communities. But in the middle of the 20th century they began to be replaced by junior high schools, and later in many places by middle schools.

But K-8 schools continued to exist in many rural communities, where the financial and educational practicality of keeping more kids under one roof sometimes managed to trump ideological ascendancy. A few neighborhoods in some cities held on to the K-8 school as well.

As the battle between middle school and junior high advocates heated up, researchers began to look at the school structures (read here grade configurations) in which middle grade kids did best. What tended to come up in such investigations was that middle grade kids in K-8 schools were better off academically and socially than their peers in pre-teen-only schools—whether organized under the middle school “concept” or as junior highs.

Many rural educators weren’t surprised at the rationales for the better performance of young adolescents in K-8 schools: more academic continuity, more personal attention from teachers and other adults in the school who were better able to know the child over a longer period of time, generally smaller schools, less clique-ishness and social pressure, fewer disruptive transitions, and greater parental involvement.

Continue reading "The K-8 Bandwagon " »

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You can help make sure that your views on educational technology--and the views of others in your community and school--are heard in an influential national survey.

The fourth annual NetDay SpeakUP survey is underway and will be open through the end of November.

The survey, which includes sections for students and teachers, is used to inform policy makers and education interests about the attitudes and opinions of students and educators toward technology. This year's survey also includes a section for parents.

Registration for the survey is free and easy.

By participating, you can help make sure the perspectives of rural educators and students are included in this important survey. In addition, each school will receive a report on the survey results from their own school, which can be used in local efforts to improve access to and use of technology for educational purposes.

You can find out more about NetDay, the non-profit organization that sponsors the survey here, and you can sign your school up to participate in the survey here.

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Voters in Alabama passed "Amendment 2" on Tuesday (59% /41%), requiring each school system (district) in the state to contribute 10 mills of property tax toward the school system's budget.

Prior to the passage of Amendment 2, local school systems were required to contribute the equivalent of 10 mills toward the state school funding formula for their system. Thirty of the state's 101 school systems collected less than 10 mills of property tax and made up the difference, usually through local sales taxes. A mill of property tax is $1 dollar tax for each $1,000 of assessed valuation.

Property taxes in Alabama remain the lowest in the nation, but the constitutional amendment will shift some of the local tax requirment for schools from sales taxes, which are more subject to economic variation and fall more heavily on low and middle income people who spend a higher share of their income on necessities, to property taxes, which are more stable and predictible and tend to fall more heavily on people who own more valuable homes and land.

Although the shift from 10-mill equivalent to 10 actual mills is viewed in some ways as a tax fairness measure, it is widely expected to generate more income for local schools. Most school systems will continue to collect all or part of their local sales tax for schools, which will now supply additional income above the 10 mill requirement.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced that the filing window for e-rate applications will open November 14 and run until February 7.

The federal eRate program provides discounts for certain technology and technology services to schools and libraries.

The FCC has also released its annual Eligible Services List (ESL). Several changes have been made to the ESL this year, including the addition of voice over internet protocal (VoIP) services. VoIP enables users to place and connect calls over the internet, rather than traditional phone lines. The FCC also clarified several rules, including when technology training is eligible for funding through the program and rules related to wireless networks.

You can find more information about eRate and this year's programs, forms, and instructions at the Universal Service Administrative Company/Schools and LIbraries Division.

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Low-wealth school districts, especially those that are also small, often have Sophie’s choices forced upon them. They’re required to sacrifice educationally some of their students as the price for supposedly buying opportunities for others.

To be sure, lots of students fall through the cracks in all kinds of schools. And in some schools those cracks are widened into chasms by poverty, abuse, and the low expectations, disregard, and hostility that accompany the various –isms. Even as thousands of educators and parents and communities and students struggle daily against the circumstance and bad policy that opened the chasms, we haven’t summoned the collective will or wisdom to address the underlying causes.

This is a challenging mix for schools. Add to it insufficient funding, prescriptive curriculum requirements, and policies like minimum school or district enrollment and small, low-wealth districts are forced to make deliberate choices that harm kids.

Here’s how it tends to work; districts are increasingly required to offer a range of classes, usually advanced ones, so those kids who want to go to college have the “advantages” of kids in wealthy districts with lots of curriculum options. When small under-funded districts don’t have the resources to offer all those classes, the “solution” forced on them is to close them and send their students long distances to larger schools in other communities.

One of the problems with this fix is that it in order to see that a few kids get calculus or a third year of foreign language or journalism, for example, a few more kids don’t go to school any more at all, and a few more don’t take any challenging classes. A so-called solution for some kids is a disaster for others.

Continue reading "College Board Could Help or Harm Rural Students" »

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