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As the United States continues to become a more diverse nation, much work remains to be done to ensure that all children, regardless of their race or ethnicity, have the opportunity to thrive. A policy report recently published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that children of color face immense barriers to success in key categories of wellbeing, and that the status of African-American children in Wisconsin is the worst in the nation. Clearly, Wisconsin has a great deal of work to do with regard to the success of children of color. Wisconsin's African-American children not only fare worse than African-American kids elsewhere, but they also suffer extreme inequities when compared to white kids in Wisconsin. And while the disparities are not as egregious for children from other communities of color, they are still very alarming. Using the data elements in the "Race for Results" report, the charts and graphs in this policy brief illustrate the status of Wisconsin's children. The dialog about racial equity is underway in Wisconsin. Everyone from elected officials to scholars to neighborhood activists to parents must act to promote a better future for every child in Wisconsin, not just because it is the right thing to do morally but because it is the smart thing to do economically. Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF) is poised to engage in both a local and statewide multi-generational effort to address the egregious racial disparities in the state. [The data charts in this document were created by Tamarine Cornelius.]

The purpose of my proposal is to present a comprehensive look at the specific needs of military students who are actively deployed globally, and who are entering the "virtual classroom" for the first time. Additionally, I have drawn upon my own experiences as an educator of more than 15 years, as well as someone who has developed course curriculum and provided related instruction in on-ground, hybridized, accelerated, and online formats to encourage vigorous discussion of facilitating the needs of such a specialized group. Moreover, I am suggesting the immediate need for further investigation into both the quality and content of learning experiences for actively deployed military personnel who are enrolled in online undergraduate programs, since it appears that the data collected on this particular sub-set of learners is limited in focus. Thus, such studies would need to include direct input from the students themselves, as well as from educational professionals who are guiding these virtual classroom experiences. Finally, my recommendation is that a commission be developed on a national scale to review and evaluate the outcome of data generated by such research efforts, and also, that this particular committee be assigned to make recommendations regarding changes in curriculum or delivery methods, to better serve the needs of professional military students who are engaged in a virtual learning environment. Following the document text is an Appendix that includes a PowerPoint presentation (in PDF format) presented on November 13, 2012, at the 2012 Global Education Conference.

Families in rural communities are often poorly connected to schools due to challenges associated with geographic isolation, poverty, inexperienced staff, inadequate resources, scheduling challenges, and low parental education. This creates problems with the access, availability, and acceptability of services. Teachers in rural schools often have to extend their responsibilities to meet student's behavioral needs, and report feeling ill-equipped to provide focused services to students with learning and behavior concerns. Parents are essential partners for meeting the needs of students in rural schools; cross-system interventions in rural communities may be particularly beneficial for children, parents, and teachers. "Conjoint behavioral consultation" (CBC; Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2008) may address barriers and create meaningful partnerships between rural parents and teachers. In CBC: (1) Parents and teachers serve as joint consultees; (2) Problems are identified, defined, analyzed, and treated through mutual and collaborative parent-teacher interactions with the assistance of a consultant; and (3) Partnerships are formed, creating opportunities for families and schools to work together around a common interest and build upon strengths of family members and school personnel. The efficacy of CBC in settings where specialized consultation services are sparse (i.e., rural schools), and where students, families and schools are characteristically distinctive, has not been explored. This study investigates the preliminary effects of CBC on decreasing problematic behaviors for rural students at home and school. It also explores unique aspects of individual case studies and discerns elements of the rural experience that may influence CBC implementation and uptake. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.) [This paper was presented originally by the authors at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.]

This report examines two sets of issues, the first being whether Indigenous Australians obtain a lower return on investment in education and training than other Australians. If they do, then this would partly explain why, in general, Indigenous participation in education and training is relatively low. The second issue is whether Indigenous participation is different once background characteristics--such as remoteness--are taken into account. To investigate these questions, the research uses previous research and a number of datasets: the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, the Census of Population and Housing, the Australian Early Development Index and the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth. The overall message is that, on the whole, Indigenous Australians have a positive return from education and training. Therefore it can be concluded that differential returns are not especially important in understanding differences in participation. The authors also find that, almost universally, background characteristics (including academic achievement at an earlier age) do not explain differential participation. Differences appear at an early age and then compound through the schooling system. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

This brief considers whether the concentration of beginning teachers in a district is associated with the district's poverty rate, racial composition, or urbanicity. Authors Douglas Gagnon and Marybeth Mattingly report that poor communities have moderately higher percentages of beginning teachers than communities with lower poverty rates and that a higher concentration of minority students in a district is associated with a higher percentage of beginning teachers. Large cities, remote towns, and rural districts have higher percentages of beginning teachers than midsized-small cities, suburbs, and fringe-distant town districts. The combined impact of poverty, race, and urbanicity has a substantial effect on the probability that a district has a critically high percentage of beginning teachers. A high percentage of beginning teachers likely reflects higher teacher turnover in the district, and could suggest issues of teacher quality. The brief uses combined data from the 2009-2010 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), the 2009 Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE), and the 2010 U.S. Census to form a nationally representative data source of 6,569 districts. (Contains 2 figures, 1 table, and 15 endnotes.)

The authors of this brief examine child poverty rates using decennial census data from 1980, 1990, and 2000, as well as American Community Survey five-year estimates between 2005 and 2009, to identify those counties where child poverty has persisted. They find persistent child poverty in nearly twice as many U.S. counties as those that report high persistent poverty across all age groups. In all, 342 counties have experienced persistently high levels of poverty across all age groups during the past twenty-nine years. In contrast, more than 700 counties experienced persistent child poverty over the same period. Rural areas are disproportionately likely to have persistent high child poverty; 81 percent of counties with persistent child poverty are nonmetropolitan while only 65 percent of all U.S. counties are nonmetropolitan. Overall, 26 percent of rural children reside in counties whose poverty rates have been persistently high. This compares with 12 percent of urban children. Counties with persistent child poverty cluster in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, other areas of the Southeast, parts of the Southwest, and in the Great Plains. The authors comment that the overwhelming urban focus of welfare programs means policymakers often overlook needy families in rural areas. In addition to the high unemployment and low education levels that they document in the brief, the physical and social isolation associated with rural poverty create problems different from those in densely settled urban areas. They conclude that the reductions in government spending likely to result from the Great Recession, coupled with two decades of the devolution of policymaking responsibility from the federal to the state level (and occasionally to municipal governments), may have significant implications for children and fragile families in these persistently poor rural counties. (Contains 6 figures and 17 endnotes.)

In 2003, the Illinois Education Research Council (IERC) began to follow the members of the Illinois public high school class of 2002 (the Class of 2002) on their journeys through postsecondary education. There is a wealth of higher education information on these students, including enrollment and the completion of certificates and degrees. Also, a sufficient amount of time has passed to adequately explore bachelor's degree completion patterns, as the study period runs from the fall semester of 2002 to the end of the spring semester of 2008. In this report the authors provide a focused analysis of initial college enrollment and the attainment of intended outcomes for those enrolling at two-year and four-year institutions. They also highlight key findings regarding more specific pathways and completion patterns such as the bachelor completion rates for the students transferring from a two-year institution to a four-year institution. They explore the participation and completion outcomes by several student characteristics in addition to select characteristics of the students' respective high schools, as well as the postsecondary institutions in which they enrolled. Overall, 79% of the students in the Class of 2002 had enrolled in postsecondary education for at least one semester before the end of the spring semester of 2008. They found that nearly all (97%) of the students who initially enroll at a two-year institution are doing so at an Illinois community college. An appendix is included. (Contains 11 tables, 15 figures and 1 footnote.)

Impoverished populations and schools in rural areas face special challenges that are different from other settings. Among these are the distances from social services, the sparse availability of assistance programs, and the shortage of resources to support educational programs and student learning. Rural schools, do, however, have assets that can be leveraged to promote student learning, including relatively smaller size, the centrality of the school in local community affairs, and the deep commitments of instructional and leadership staff. While instructional interventions that work with any low-performing students are generally transferrable to the rural setting, the most promising programs focus on curricular changes. Curricula that strengthen the "value of place" and "place-based pedagogy" are successful in linking students to schools and important learning outcomes. (Contains 15 online resources.)

Teacher shortages are essentially a problem of distribution (Darling-Hammond, 2001; Ingersoll, 2001; National Association of State Boards of Education, 1998; Olson, 2000; Reeves, 2003; Voke, 2002). According to recent studies, hardest to find are teachers who are both qualified and willing to teach in hard-to-staff schools, which included those in highly urban and rural areas--especially schools serving minority or low-income students. In addition, recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers are intertwined; it's not enough to attract these teachers if concurrent steps are not taken to keep them (Liu, Johnson, & Peske, 2004). Schools need help in building their capacity to attract and maintain a highly qualified teaching staff. Although not all urban and rural schools are hard to staff, those with high numbers of inexperienced and out-of-field teachers, special-needs or English-language-learner students, and poor, minority, and highly mobile students face the toughest recruitment and retention challenges (Jacob, 2007; Monk, 2007; Reeves, 2003; Southeast Center for Teaching Quality, 2002). Also, social and geographic isolation and lower-than-average pay make these schools unattractive to many teachers--leading to an inequitable distribution of teachers as more head to midsized and suburban districts (Levin & Quinn, 2003; Reeves, 2003). The needs of hard-to-staff urban schools are often very different from those of their rural counterparts, and teacher recruitment is no exception. Therefore, recruitment strategies must be targeted to meet the needs of individual districts and schools. Several tips and cautions for policymakers and school leaders to keep in mind are listed in this paper.

This report presents key statistics and trends for teenage mothers and their babies in Australia. Teenage mothers and their babies are more likely to experience broader disadvantage, have antenatal risk factors and have poorer maternal and baby outcomes during and after birth, than older mothers and their babies. In Australia, the rate of teenage births has decreased between 2005 and 2015, from 17.5 births per 1,000 women to 11.4. In 2015, 8,268 babies were born to 8,203 teenage mothers aged less than 20, accounting for 2.7% of all mothers.

Leaders of programs serving rural America need to act strategically to ensure the long-term success of their initiatives. This strategy brief describes the funding landscape of rural programs and highlights the unique challenges confronting rural program leaders. It describes the different public and private resources that can support out-of-school time programming and identifies key strategies that can be used to finance and sustain these programs in rural communities. (Contains 13 footnotes.)

Professional development for teachers of mathematics is changing dramatically. It is changing, in terms of content and pedagogy--because of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards, which imply a more collaborative, constructive, and student-centered approach to instruction--and in terms of format--because of research on the importance of situated learning for changing teachers' practice in the classroom. Workshops and university courses are being replaced by on-site, field-based training, either in person or through distance learning technology, and by teacher learning communities. This paper discusses why these changes are particularly important for rural schools--due to the difficulty they have in recruiting and retaining qualified teachers due to low salaries. geographic isolation, and lack of access to amenities such as clubs, theaters, shops, sports facilities, and even, in some cases, medical care and hospitals. New situated-learning, professional preparation and development communities hope to address two timely issues: the immediate concerns related to personnel qualification requirements of the No Child Left Behind legislation, and also to long-standing problems of recruitment and retention.

How to adequately fund small schools is becoming a pressing issue in Maine due to numerous factors, including state and federal accountability laws and declining enrollments. The following were among the challenges facing small rural schools: (a) attracting and retaining qualified teachers, (b) attracting and retaining qualified specialty teachers such as music teachers, nurses, science teachers, special education personnel, (c) less visible but increased proportions of students living in poverty, (d) availability of trained special education staff for severe, low-incidence disabilities, and (e) cost of living adjustments that further exacerbate the problem of attracting and retaining high quality teachers. Determining the extent to which these and other potential issues exist in Maine and identifying potential solutions are crucial. Among potential solutions that have been major topics of discussion in Maine are the use of technology and distance education opportunities, participation in regional efforts, and additional funding changes. This paper describes one piece of this complex equation: a funding adjustment for small, geographically isolated schools. (Contains 8 tables and 2 figures.)

Congress has raised concerns about difficulties rural school districts face implementing the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA). This report describes: key challenges rural states and districts face; strategies rural districts have developed; expenditures and resources related to rural districts? compliance; and guidance and assistance from the Department of Education (Education). Researchers conducted a nationally representative survey of rural and nonrural school districts and interviewed Education officials and officials in rural states and school districts. Data analysis indicates that rural districts faced challenges in meeting NCLBA provisions to a greater extent than nonrural districts. For example, rural district officials were more likely to report challenges presented by a large enrollment of economically disadvantaged students who may live in communities lacking resources, such as libraries. Rural districts reported that small school size and geographic isolation greatly affected their ability to implement NCLBA. Rural officials said that limited access to teacher training facilities and internet line maintenance difficulties impeded NCLBA implementation efforts. Rural school officials reported using such strategies as teacher training to the same extent as nonrural respondents to help meet student proficiency provisions and implement teacher qualification requirements of NCLBA. Rural districts were more likely to increase computer capacity than nonrural districts. However, small rural districts were less likely than other rural districts to use certain strategies, such as teacher mentoring. Rural state and district officials identified specific expenditures related to NCLBA, such as those relating to analyzing assessment results and providing tutoring services to students. However, district officials could not determine total expenditures made to implement NCLBA, in part because their accounting records were not maintained in a way that tracked expenditlocal funds, officials reported using multiple federal programs to implement NCLBA.

Case studies of five small and isolated rural schools in the Southwest focused on their ability to fully implement Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSR) programs over the 3-year period of their federal grants. Data were gathered via interviews with school personnel, classroom observations, document reviews, and telephone interviews with each school's model developers. Findings indicate that the more prescriptive models received more teacher support, whereas the more open-ended programs appeared more fragile. The elementary models included student monitoring techniques that showed continuous student progress. The more open-ended models, used primarily at the secondary level, did not provide this ongoing feedback. Staff development activities played a significant role in providing teachers with necessary knowledge and skills. Resistance to reform efforts lessened as unsupportive teachers left, but training new teachers was problematic. Administrators played an important role in initiating CSR programs, but leadership became less of an issue as the projects moved forward. Attempts to keep parents informed and supportive of the programs were modest. However, two schools found that uninformed parents were apathetic when it came to providing additional financial resources. State academic standards and mandated exams were a major influence on sustaining teacher attention to student progress. Test results provided an inconclusive picture of the relationship between CSR efforts and student performance. Teachers and consultants attributed greater progress to their students than that reflected in state-mandated tests. The rural context did not negatively influence program implementation. Five appendices present summaries for the five schools. (TD)

Ontario's funding formula fails to recognize the unique needs of northern school boards, which cover immense geographic areas, have many small schools, and enroll a high proportion of Aboriginal students. This report examines school size, enrollment, and staffing in northern Ontario schools, drawing on 2002-03 tracking reports of provincial schools. Northern Ontario elementary schools averaged 221 students, compared to 373 in the rest of the province, while northern secondary schools averaged 481 students, compared to 1,007 elsewhere in the province. Since 2000, 43 northern schools have closed, all of them small schools. Under funding formula requirements, fewer than one quarter of northern schools had sufficient students to qualify for a full-time principal or a full-time teacher-librarian. Only 54 percent of secondary schools qualified for a full-time guidance counselor. Northern schools often lacked specialist teachers and special education personnel. Also unrecognized by the funding formula were the need to pay higher salaries to attract teachers to northern areas; the huge geographic areas covered by French-language school boards, which serve 17 percent of the northern population; the special needs of Aboriginal students; and the high cost of student transportation. Recommendations are offered for revising the funding formula. (SV)

This report describes the Remote School, a "center for student leadership" in the high country of the Victorian Alps (Australia), and presents findings from an ongoing evaluation. This state-supported residential program addresses the needs of year-9 students on the threshold of adulthood and seeks to harness their energy in positive ways. The school serves only year-9 students during a one-term (9-week) residential program. During the term, a mixed-gender group of 40 students undertakes an experientially based curriculum designed to stimulate leadership ideas and ideals that support enhanced self-concept development. Teams of students design community service projects to be completed on return to their home communities. A key program feature is the use of laptop computers and the Internet to enhance learning. Evaluation findings presented here focus on technology use and student self-concept. Teacher and student surveys covered (1) teachers' use of various learning technologies, confidence with the technologies, and related professional development needs; (2) students' use of computers and the Internet in school, daily engagement in various types of technological activities, attitudes toward computers, and confidence in own abilities to use computers and to teach others to use them; and (3) students' self-efficacy and self-evaluation with regard to 18 "enterprise capabilities." (SV)

In 2001, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) created a rural task force to develop strategies to improve HHS services in rural communities. Fifteen HHS agencies have programs serving rural communities; child- and education-related programs provide child welfare services, Head Start, health promotion and prevention services, training for rural health care providers, and prevention and rehabilitation services for substance abuse and mental illness. More than 450 individuals and organizations submitted comments in response to a notice in the Federal Register. Three findings emerged: HHS lacks a common definition of "rural"; lack of coordination has resulted in inconsistent application, implementation, and evaluation requirements in the more than 225 HHS programs serving rural communities; and the HHS policy development process does not consistently consider rural concerns. Task force recommendations include creating a formal structure within HHS for coordinating rural policy initiatives among HHS agencies as well as with external partners; creating an interagency workgroup to follow up on proposed strategies; ensuring that HHS processes include a specific focus on serving rural America; and developing a common methodology for determining HHS investment in specific communities and populations. The task force set five goals to improve provision of health care and human services in rural areas: 1) improve rural communities' access to quality health and human services; 2) strengthen rural families; 3) strengthen rural communities and support economic development; 4) partner with state, local, and tribal governments to support rural communities; and 5) support rural policy and decision making, and ensure rural voice in the consultative process. (Contains 41 notes.) (TD)

Yup'ik Head Start personnel in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta in Alaska wanted to create a team approach for serving at-risk children with special needs. The area's umbrella agency for Head Start partnered with an innovative in-service team training project developed by the University of Idaho to deliver a culturally relevant, mobile in-service module covering teamwork. A participatory action research project compared training outcomes of six Yup'ik teams to those of eight teams from rural Pacific Northwest (PNW) locations who took the module. Participants completed surveys pre- and post-program, and 6 months following the program. Results indicate that Yup'ik teams made and maintained gains in 22 of the 30 items on the survey following participation in the teaming module, with 9 of these items being significant. The significant scores came primarily in the categories of meetings and goals/planning. These are skills typically associated with a Western approach to service delivery and may reflect the increasing desire among Yup'ik people to live and work successfully "in both worlds." There were apparent differences and similarities between the PNW and Yup'ik teams. The PNW teams ranked themselves much lower in the pretest profile than did the Yup'ik teams and then made gains consistent with those of the Yup'ik teams. All teams made their greatest gains in increasing the effectiveness of their meetings, indicating a universal concern in this area regardless of ethnic or cultural issues. (TD)

In 1994 Ethiopia committed to expanding its education system, particularly at the primary level, to reach previously marginalized communities. The unprecedented expansion of the education system resulted in large classes with few resources. The reforms aimed to implement student-centered, active learning, but the new approach was not reflected in the teacher preparation curriculum, and there was little student teaching. As a result, there was a teacher shortage and morale was low. A new site-based system of inservice teacher development was introduced in 1997. Training center schools received special training and other inputs in order to function as local training centers for other schools in their geographic area. Staff development programs took place at regular intervals, mostly at the school level. They were practical and based on the concerns and needs of primary teachers, and they involved primary teachers themselves as facilitators. The new model faced considerable opposition at first. The program was tried out on a limited basis in Tigrai Region. Teachers reported that the cluster school-based training was important and relevant to their everyday activities in the classroom. Teachers also responded positively to the participatory, group activity-based methodologies of the workshops and to the regular contact with their colleagues that the cluster organization provided. Because of its contribution to teacher skills and morale, the program was adopted as national policy. (Contains 26 references.) (TD)

In addition to higher education programs, tribal colleges offer welfare-to-work programs, adult education, vocational and agricultural training, and childcare, which makes their costs higher than those of conventional colleges. Most tribal colleges are small, resulting in higher than average per student costs. Tribal colleges charge an average of 52 percent more for tuition than the average 2-year college. Since tribal colleges are located on reservations, they are not eligible for state and local funds. The bulk of their funding comes from federal appropriations and grants. Tribally controlled community colleges receive core funding through the Department of Interior under the Tribally Controlled College or University Assistance Act of 1978. The American Indian Higher Education Consortium wrote and lobbied for passage of this act and lobbied to have tribal colleges added to the list of land-grant colleges, allowing them to share projects, resources, funding, and information with other land-grant institutions. Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965 allots funds to some tribal colleges to help raise their academic quality and their institutional, management, and fiscal stability. Only five tribal colleges receive funds from gaming, and these amounts are small and irregular. Tribal colleges are eligible for a variety of state and federal grants; several of those are also available to any institution of higher education that teaches Native American students. Tribal college presidents started the American Indian College Fund to provide scholarships for Indian students. (TD)

In the spring of 2001, the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Education included a web-based instructional component in all distance education classes. This component aims to mediate access and equity issues in providing postsecondary education to rural Alaska residents. The number of courses offered through distance education had been limited by the time constraints involved in audio-conferencing, which had been the main means of delivering coursework. Students taking courses by distance delivery, including many Alaska Natives, were taking up to 15 years to complete their college degree. Geographic isolation also made it difficult for already licensed teachers to take additional coursework, either for professional development or to climb the salary scale. Almost immediately following the decision, some members of the rural faculty showed resistance to learning the web-based system. The heightened nature and tone of the resistance suggested fear in using the system, fear of technology in general, and fear of change. In the fall of 2001, a team flew to the rural campuses to provide technology training workshops. Observations made during the campus visits indicated that well-equipped computer labs at some sites were under-utilized; technical support staff was available at each site; and under-attendance at many workshops implicated faculty indifference to learning the web-based system. It was concluded that reluctant faculty must be accorded every possible support measure to assist them in learning to utilize new technologies. (TD)

This research analyzes the impact of the Thai government's activities to promote educational opportunities for people of the northern hill tribes. In addition to interviews with government and nongovernmental organization staff, field surveys were conducted in hill tribe villages. The introductory chapter provides background information on the hill tribes, which are Thailand's most disadvantaged ethnic minorities. Chapter 2 describes government policies and support programs for hill tribes related to education, including highland community learning centers for basic skills and lifelong learning, distance education efforts, agricultural extension education, development and welfare services, and international and nongovernmental organization support programs. Chapter 3 examines implementation of these policies and programs. Chapter 4 defines the prospects for highland development, placing particular emphasis on the potential of education to improve the livelihood of highland communities. Recommendations include including hill tribe communities in planning and implementing support activities; developing curriculum to correspond to community needs; building the capacity of those engaged in field-level implementation of support activities; increasing collaboration among governmental and nongovernmental organizations and international development agencies; emphasizing integrated approaches to highland development; giving higher prominence to quality of life issues such as education and health care; and harmonizing modern knowledge and technologies with local wisdom and practices in efforts to improve agricultural production, employment, and income generation. Ten appendices present 47 references, a map, a list of interviewees, and information on government agencies' programs. (TD)

A study assessed the impact of the Shepherd School program, a nonformal basic education program in rural northern Ghana implemented by a nongovernmental organization. Data were gathered through observation; document analysis; and interviews with 42 children, parents, community members, chiefs, school staff, NGO members, and assemblymen in 2 communities. Findings indicate that the program is fostering children's engagement in school, as indicated by the fact that over 700 children who would not have entered school have been receiving basic education. This is significant given the history of animosity towards schooling in northern Ghana. As a result of consulting with community members during implementation, the program has been locally relevant and flexible enough to allow children time to perform their household duties and also attend school. Parents' attitudes towards education, especially girls' education, have improved. The communities have participated in constructing and maintaining school buildings, monitoring facilitator punctuality, recruiting facilitators, and setting the school schedule. The program has improved access to education and has served as an entry point to the formal schools, with about 147 students having made the transition to the state school system. However, skepticism from the Ghana Education Service and the more structured environment in the state school system have been constraints. Children interviewed indicated that they would use their education to advance on the social ladder rather than return to their home communities, as originally anticipated by program personnel. (TD)