Rural school districts are going to face special hurdles in competing in the latest round of funding from the federal stimulus package, according rural education advocates.

So the Rural School and Community Trust is trying to get the word out to rural schools and nonprofits on how they can win a piece of the federal Department of Education’s “Investing in Education” grant program (called “i3,” for short).

The national competitive grant program will provide $650 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  Deadline is May 11.

The Rural Trust will hold a webinar on the i3 grant program at 11 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, March 19, 2010. The free presentation will offer an overview on the i3 grant program, which will fund local efforts that start or expand innovative programs to help improve student performance.  (To register, visit the Trust’s website.)

Rural districts can, and should, compete for the grants, Williams said.

 “Rural districts have to understand this that challenge is really big,” she said, citing a general decline in private and public funding for rural education. “The financial picture for rural schools is pretty grim."

Williams said funding decline was a product of several factors: private foundations shifting to a more urban focus, flat state budgets, and declining local tax revenues.

Other workshops and webinars for potential applications are being offered through the Department of Education website.

One reason rural counties have shown consistently higher unemployment rates during this recession is education. Rural America has a lower percentage of BAs and that results in higher unemployment

When the local school board decided to make primary health care of employees a priority, every won.

"Urbanite Duncan Continues Rural Outreach," reads the headline in an Education Week blog post written by Michele McNeil. Education Secretary Arne Duncan (above), "whose education experience is firmly planted in urban ground, is continuing to reach out to rural folks to figure out how the reforms he's pushing will play out int he farther reaches of the country." So Duncan met with the "Rural Nine," nine superintendents from rural school districts. 

The superintendents told McNeil that they talked to Duncan about his urban-centric plans for reforming schools. They told the Education Week correspondent that none of the reform models Duncan is pushing will work for rural schools. For instance, the most flexible plan calls for replacement of principals at failing schools. But where is a rural district supposed to find a choice of new principals. Trained school leaders aren't exactly hanging around rural communities waiting for openings. The superintendents also complained about the time it took to apply for federal grants. "Many of us simply do not have the capacity to spend all of this time applying for grants," one Michigan superintendent said.

Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation announced the winners of $290 million in education grants. None of the schools or school districts were in rural communities.