Rural kids score between urban, suburban on tests; new report has lots more data on rural education

Rural students are doing better on national tests than their counterparts in cities, but not as well in reading and math as those in suburbs, according to a report from the National Center for Education Statistics, which has a wealth of other background information on education in rural America.

"A larger percentage of rural public school students in the fourth and eighth grades scored at or above the 'proficient' level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress [tests in] reading, mathematics, and science ... in 2005 than did public school students in cities at these grade levels," NCES said in a release. "However, smaller percentages of rural public school students than suburban public school students scored at or above the 'proficient' level in reading and mathematics."

The report says that in 2003-04, more than half of school districts and a third of all public schools in the U.S. were in rural areas, but those schools had only a fifth of the total public-school enrollment. Rural schools accounted for 28 and 25 percent of enrollment in the South and the Midwest, respectively, but only 16 percent in the Northeast and 13 percent in the West. The report uses a new classification system to address the chronic problem of defining "rural." It "distinguishes between rural areas that are on the fringe of an urban area, rural areas that are at some distance, and rural areas that are remote," the release said. (Read more)