Saving the children of the poor in rural schools (original) (raw)
Related papers
Saving the Children of the Poor In Rural Schools. Working Paper No. 28.
… Collaborative Center for …, 2006
This study closely examined interview transcripts collected in six rural schools to describe how educators and community members viewed issues of social class. Data came from an SEA-funded project investigating high-poverty schools honored for serving all students well. This study is one of several drawing on data gathered for this project. Findings demonstrate three distinct approaches to engaging the poor. The major tendency is “saving the poor,” a benign middle-class attempt to support impoverished families and intending to help children from such families enter the local middle class. Four of the six schools embrace this approach. The other two schools were different. In one, the poor were repudiated and even demonized. In the other, the poor were not even identified as a group; instead, interviewees described all residents as “common people,” and the school exhibited a strong community purpose and a strong concern for the common good. Such close connection permitted educators to convince skeptical rural parents of the value of a prominent reform mathematics curriculum, which this school adopted. The discussion considers several theories potentially useful in explaining the findings: educational leadership, cultural values, community type, economic structure, and historical views of schooling. Examination of issues of economic structure, however, offers unique causal insights. The discussion concludes with an interpretation of the relevance of a deeper understanding of social class issues to the future of rural schooling.
The Cultural Contradictions of Middle Schooling for Rural Community Survival
Middle schools have been growing in popularity since the 1960s, and they are the only school type in the U.S. actually to have increased in number during the past 2 decades. Demographic changes, redistricting pressures related to desegregation, and economies ofscale rationales are probable causes behind the middle school movement. Educational leaders who advocate such schools, however, claim that middle schools have come into being because their instructional practices are better suited to the developmental needs ofchildren. We argue, conversely, that school reform in America historically has had little to do with the developmental needs ofchildren. Middle schools in both urban and rural places are attractive mostly for administrative, not pedagogical, reasons. Further, since the construction of middle schools in many rural places often involves closing local elementary schools, the middle school concept does violence to communitarian precepts. In short, the middle school movement can be a real threat to citizens ofmany small towns, especially where their small elementary or high schools remain otherwise viable centers of community life.
We studied the efforts of rural math teachers to make community connections, a comparatively rare field for placed-based education. Subjects included educators, parents, non-parent community members, and students in Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, Ohio, Vermont, and Washington. We used a multiple case-study design, based on verbatim transcripts. Three themes emerged, comprising eight subthemes. Claims about "relevance" (theme I) functioned complexly as follows:
The Coalition of Essential Schools and Rural Educational Reform
The Rural Educator, 2018
has existed for thirty years and includes hundreds of public schools that are diverse in size, population, and programmatic emphasis. A qualitative grounded theory approach is utilized to describe how three rural (non-urban/suburban) high schools operationalize CES Common Principles. This research documents that the CES reform network may be both a viable and underutilized reform model for rural school districts to assist them in achieving educational excellence. Empirical data came from school site visits, interviews and school documents. Grounded theory identifies four working hypothesis that explain how these schools, as CES members, aim to be true to the Coalition's principles. The working hypotheses are: (1) Educational justice, democracy, and citizenship, (2) The educational value of interpersonal relationships between teachers and students, (3) Pedagogical and curricular organization to enhance student engagement and learning, and (4) Pathways to adulthood via the world.
Small Rural Schools: Unique Challenges, Unequal Treatment -- A Policy Analysis
2021
Ignored under No Child Left Behind (2002) and given only lip-service in the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (US Department of Education, 2021), rural schools face challenges of poverty as well as inequities in the form of discrimination under current Title I funding allocation formulas and disproportionate location in states with low levels of school aid. Furthermore, rural areas, and hence rural schools, face challenges of declining population and school enrollment, consolidation pressures, and an eroding economic base that is both a cause and an effect of youth out-migration. The problems of rural areas and rural schools are stereotyped, ignored or exploited by policymakers, and invisible to much of the public (Lichter & Parisi, 2009). Consequently, rural schools continue to be underserved by current education policies and initiatives, and their students left behind. A common image of struggling schools and neglected students is described by Jonathan Kozol (2005) in Shame of the Nation: decaying school buildings in a central city attended by students of color who live in dangerous, drug-infested neighborhoods in female-headed, singleparent households dependent on public assistance. However, a significant number of schools attended by children who live in poverty do not fit this description. Poverty in rural areas and rural school districts is prevalent and persistent. A higher percentage of rural families are poor (15%) compared to urban families (12.5%). This has been true every year since 1960, as most geographic areas of highly persistent poverty are rural (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2008; Jensen, 2006), and 48 of the 50 counties with the highest poverty rate are rural. These numbers
Educational Issues with Rural Poverty
Journal of Education, Teaching and Social Studies
This paper is significant because it looks at different aspects of minorities in rural poverty. The issue at hand is one that is not often studied or written about, therefore leaving those students at a great disadvantage. Article reviews and analysis show that minorities in rural poverty are a group unto themselves and must be treated accordingly. Teachers in these situations must (a) forget about generalized views on minorities and/or poverty and concentrate on becoming poverty-aware and (b) must connect and build relationships with their students.
How Socioeconomic Status Effects Instruction in Middle School Classrooms
Journal of Education & Social Policy, 2020
In suburban school district, the gap in mathematics performance between students considered economically disadvantaged and economically no disadvantaged was slowly widening as evidenced by state test scores. The purpose and research questions of this instrumental case study were designed to: (a) identify what Grades 6, 7 and 8 mathematics teachers perceive the role socioeconomic status plays in ability to learn mathematics and to (b) understand what teachers believe affects their perceptions of students' ability to learn mathematics. Participants were middle school mathematics teachers from a small, diverse, suburban school district. Data was gathered through semistructured interviews; and publicly available aggregated demographic data. Identified themes were used to understand how teacher perceptions affect mathematics instruction and student success. The results indicated that a position paper outlining a course of action intended to increase teachers' understanding of the needs of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, be created and presented to the district leadership.
The Rural Educator
Rural communities in the Southern US are shaped by a legacy of racial oppression carried out through educational systems, in tandem with contemporary policies that perpetuate the marginalization of minoritized students. In this qualitative, revelatory case study, we examine the experiences of rural, southern school leaders who are tasked with ensuring educational equity. Using critical place-based leadership and bonding/bridging theory, we examine the social construction of belonging in a rural southern community, and the implications for equity-centered educational leadership. We find the community maintains tight-knit bonding capital that is rooted in land ownership and racial exclusion, which is conceptualized as southernness. Educational leaders who develop bridging capital were best positioned to shift community perceptions necessary to enact educational equity.