By Lauren Linn

Remote Area Medical ~ Hospital under the Big Top

editor — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:12:05 -0700

The Remote Area Medical clinic, providing free eye and dental care, set up at the fairgrounds in Wise, Virginia, last July
Photo: Getty Images

Cars began lining up outside Chilhowee Park in Knoxville, TN, at midnight. It was early January. But despite 27 degree temperatures, the passengers had come to wait for seven hours -- to see a dentist or optometrist they could afford.

Relief corps and ventures to provide health care to those who lack basic assistance are no longer limited to Third World countries. Massive aid centers, volunteer medical staffs, and lists of people waiting for help are not just found at foreign aid stations. Working Americans are finding themselves lining up for free medical aid, revealing the growing gap between the wealthy and poor in the United States. Remote Area Medical is helping to serve Americans who cannot afford health care.

Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps (RAM) was founded in 1985 to provide medical care to some of the poorest and most remote areas of the world. RAM is a non-profit, volunteer relief corps that provides free dental, eye and veterinary care to the underserved of the world. Volunteers collect supplies, medicine, facilities, and more. They travel as far as the Amazon jungles to assist those in need. RAM operates solely on the generosity of the American people and has no corporate sponsors. In fact, last year the organization survived on only $250,000 but treated 70,000 people.

Speak Your Piece: Rural Students Pull and Push for AP

editor — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 13:09:44 -0700

Students in AP Chemistry work in the analysis lab, Westside High School
Clear Fork, West Virginia
Photo: Robert Lyons

As a graduate of a small high school in Clear Fork, West Virginia -- and now Robertson Scholar at Duke University -- I don't find many students who share my educational background.

When I was filling out applications to colleges across the country, both big state universities and private institutions, one section of the application stood out to me: “List the Advanced Placement (AP) courses you have taken in high school and those you will be taking this year.”

Achieving success, in my mind, was getting into Duke or another great university. I knew that to achieve that goal I had to take AP classes, but I was facing that same problem many students in rural America face - my small West Virginia school had no APs.

I decided to take the road less traveled and enter into the world of virtual learning. The summer prior to my sophomore year of high school, I took AP United States History through Apex Learning - a learning center begun by Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen that provides AP classes to students via online instruction.

Teenage Photographers: Migration of the Minds

editor — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:16:11 -0700

Teenagers, many of them children of migrant farmers, frame up photos at Fender's Farm in Washington County, TN, as part of a multicultural education project -- "Growing Tennessee."
Photo: Katie Connors

Rural America has a reputation as the land of Anglo-only residents, of folks who lack culture in part because they've never known people of different ethnic backgrounds. That assumption's wrong, and Telamon’s Youth Initiative in rural Tennessee is proving it.

"Growing Tennessee: Rural Youth Cultivate Common Ground" ("Growing Tennessee" for short) is helping unite the Appalachian and Latino cultures. The project involves fifty students, junior high and high school ages. Half are from rural Appalachian families and half are children of migrant parents. Working with top-notch photographers, the students learn camera basics; then they photograph whatever is important to them and explore their photography -- and their cultures -- with one another.

Some students are migrant workers themselves, others are Latinos who are now native to the area, and others are white farmers’ children whose families have lived in Appalachia for generations. Students are able to share their heritage and background, and break past the "uncultured" stereotypes of Appalachia. Diversity is apparent in the mountains, and "Growing Tennessee" highlights that.

Lack of AP Courses Holds Rural Students Back

editor — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:40:44 -0700

The percentages of students, Class of 2007,
who took at least one Advanced Placement test
Chart: Daily Yonder, with data from College Board

There is an achievement gap between students in rural and non-rural schools, and it's due, in significant part, to unequal course offerings -- with effects that extend long past graduation.

One third of all U.S. schools are rural; twenty-one percent of public school students are enrolled at rural campuses. Though rural/small town high school graduation rates are higher than those in urban areas, according to the U.S. Department of Education, rural grads are less likely to go on to college. The National Education Association has found that a greater proportion of students in rural public schools are "low-performing."

But why? A report in Education Week found that a major difference between rural and non-rural student performance is that so many rural schools lack Honors courses and Advanced Placement (AP) curricula.

Both Honors and AP courses are considered college-preparatory; in fact, a student who completes an AP class, then takes the AP test and scores 3 or higher usually obtains college credit for high school course work. It makes sense that students who’ve been exposed to college-level academics in high school will be more likely to seek higher education and to succeed at college.

Obama, Newly Anointed, Draws Cheers in Bristol

editor — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 08:08:32 -0700

Sen. Barack Obama made his first campaign stop since claiming the Democratic Party nomination Bristol, Virginia.
Photo: Lauren Linn

Even in ninety-degree heat, a long line of people stretched around Virginia High School in Bristol, VA, June 5th, as Senator Barack Obama kicked off his campaign for President of the United States. I was among the crowd, curious to see what reaction Obama would receive from this demographic - the people he had failed to woo in the primary. Crowd or no crowd, something just did not seem right.

I walked the considerable hike from my car and began to wonder if I were headed to a University of Virginia football game (UVA is in Charlottesville, 250 miles away). Lots of cars had UVA plates and stickers, and many other cars were not from the area (visible from other window decals and license plates). Granted there were numerous attendees from the area, but I was surprised there were so many from other places, not the local rural towns. It seemed as though every Obama fan not from Southwest Virginia had come to the town hall meeting.

After asking a campaign organizer for two tickets, having not RSVP’d as I was supposed to, I stood in the long line. I expected to be surrounded by Obama shirts, activists, groups of supporters, but that was not the case. I stood in front of a man decked in J.Crew and a UVA hat. So was Obama actually going to have to answer to the sorts of people who hadn't voted for him in the primary? Or was the audience there going to be more college-educated than the local blue-collar workers, those who are looking for economic and health care reforms?