Rural Matters

We wanted to know more about the rural school districts that serve high poverty communities so first we statistically rounded up the 7604 districts nationwide that have over half their students in a school that is physically located in a rural community. Then we identified the 800 – about 10 percent -- that have the highest rate of eligibility for the federal Title I program. That is the program providing funds for disadvantaged students. We’ll call these 800 high-poverty rural districts the "rural 800."

Continue reading to find out more about these districts and to see a chart of the 16 states where most Rural 800 districts are located.

Continue reading "The "Rural 800" Districts" »

Posted by Marty Strange at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Several years ago rural districts won a lawsuit challenging the Basic Education Plan, the state’s finance plan. Their win was based largely on the fact that rural districts had much lower salaries than urban districts, reducing their ability to compete for and retain teachers. Now urban districts in Tennessee are concerned that some of the new provisions of the formula are detrimental to the largest districts. A recent study by the state’s Comptroller supports the claims of the urban districts, which want Governor Phil Bredeson to weigh in on the matter. Governor Bredeson is calling for expanded pre-K programs. He also wants to use state lottery funds for education.

Posted by Robin Lambert at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)