Plan for a Southeastern Rural Education Information System.

A plan is presented herein for development of a Rural Education Information System for the 10 states which comprise the Southeastern Regional Council for Educational Improvement. Since the Council considers its principal function to be support of educational policy analysis and formation in its member states, the information system design presented in this paper is oriented toward policy support. The difficulties of developing such a system are listed as follows: conventional information systems have not generally been successful in supporting decisions at the upper management levels; the nature of policy development is such that supplying needed information is inherently difficult; the reference system consists of the state education agencies of 10 states and is thus extremely complex; and problems of data acquisition and quality control are serious. These problems, which must be addressed if the plan is to succeed, are discussed and considered in the plan which is presented. Appendices include a 47-page literature review on the status and needs of rural education in the Southeast, the questionnaires used in two rural education information needs surveys, the item statistics by state and by respondent category, the form needed for inclusion of a program in the Alabama Resource File, and information on the data bases used. (AN)