Saturday, November 21, 2009
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Education

Education | Growth and Development
Rural Education and the 'Bigger Picture'
06/11/2008
Educators may see one future: Go to college and leave home. Rural students often envision different ways to live.
Broadband and Tech | Education | Media
The Backroad Librarian: Generation Next
06/10/2008

cyberpunk librarian thumbMost librarians don't say "shh!" anymore. They're "information activists," and rural communities need them more now than ever.

Education | Environment
'Toxic Nopales': Class Project Spurs State Inquiry
06/06/2008
chemical site elsa 150
Students at the Llano Grande Center in Edcouch-Elsa, Texas, are combining oral history, environmental science, and direct action in 'Toxic Nopalitos,' an ambitious project that's come to the attention of state authorities.

The high schoolers knew that people in this part of South Texas worried that an abandoned chemical plant posed a health and safety hazard. Red Barn Chemical closed in 1985, but the relics of the factory stayed. When the students interviewed local residents, "stories of jumping bicycles from piles of powdered chemicals, smelling the ammonia fumes from the plant and losing relatives to cancer and babies to miscarriage poured out." The students then made their findings public at a community meeting.

Their environmental study will go on. Further, Sara Perkins of The Monitor writes, "the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has assigned an investigator to the site after students wrote the agency, noting the strong possibility that the soil there could still be contaminated."

Education
Banks Drop Community Colleges From Loan Program
06/03/2008
 
More than 6.2 million of the nation's 14.8 million undergraduates go to community colleges, many of which are in rural America. (Genesee Community College in Western New York, above.) A third of the graduates from these institutions took out loans — loans that are today harder to get. The New York Times reported this week that some of the nation's largest banks have stopped making loans to students attending community colleges.

The financial markets are rocky now. What's new, the Times reports, is that lenders are treating community colleges differently from four year institutions. Community college administrators contend that since the loan is to the student, the type of college, two or four-year, shouldn't matter to the bank.

In an editorial Tuesday, the Times urges community colleges to join a direct loan program operated by the federal government. This will help community college students to avoid the turmoil now experienced by those seeking college loans from commercial banks.

BioFuels and Energy | Education | Main Street Economics
To Grow the Coalfield Economy, Plant a College
05/22/2008
grad thumbHow can coalfield societies prosper? How can the economies of boom-and-bust rural regions gain stability? Ask that person in the cap and gown.
Education
Class of One
05/19/2008

Jeff Greenwood is the 2008 graduating class from Opheim High School. Opheim is in Montana, ten miles south of the Canadian border. No matter to Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (above), who made the commencement address over the weekend.

Kristen Cates of the Great Falls Tribune reports that Jeff lost his only other Class of '08 classmate when Angela Edwards moved to Utah. "You get to know everybody and you're friends with everybody," Greenwood said of growing up in rural Montana. "At the same time, you can't get away with anything." And, of course, "the student-to-teacher ratio is pretty good."

 

This is the second class-of-one commencement address Schweitzer has given. "I'm a small-town guy," said Schweitzer, who grew up in Geyser. "Jeff's probably not so dissimilar to Brian Schweitzer. Jeff probably hasn't seen the world yet."

Education
Wanted: Ph.D. Who'll Kiss a Cow
05/02/2008
kissing a cow thumbPresidents of rural community colleges typically must contend with geographic isolation, a static local economy, and meager funding. A researcher says it's time to "ruralize" the job description and attract those people most likely to succeed.
Education
What's Rural About Being a Bully?
04/26/2008
There's lots of research about rural education, but just because a school or its students are in a rural community doesn't mean that place matters.
Education
South Dakota School District Mergers
04/25/2008
South Dakota decided last year that any school district that dipped below 100 students would have to merge. The Economist notes that enrollment in the state's schools had declined 94% over the previous ten years. (See chart above.) Ten S.D. districts have already been set for merger.

The magazine reviews the "contentious" history of school consolidation in the U.S. In 1939, there were 117,000 school districts in the country; now there are just over 14,000. School district mergers have been fought all along, recently in North Dakota and today in Maine. Small districts contend they do a better job of educated students than large districts.

"But the debate over rural schools hides a sad irony," the magazine notes. "The better a small town educates its pupils, the more likely they are to seek jobs elsewhere. According to a study by Pennsylvania State University, returns to investment in human capital are much lower in rural areas than in urban ones."
Education
Speak Your Piece: A Teacher's Dream, Certified Online
04/04/2008

sandy thumbmnailThrough the Internet, a dream deferred for thirty years comes true for a determined teacher in rural Virginia. An online, non-profit university has special federal scholarships for rural educators.

 

Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural
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