Experts explain why most federal models for fixing failed schools won't work in rural areas

Colorado was one of the most aggressive states pursuing round one Race to the Top funding. Two education researchers suggest the state's second application needs better allowances for rural schools. "Leaving rural districts out of the high-stakes money game hurt Colorado in the first funding round," Luke C. Miller and Michael Hanson, researchers with the Urban Institute's Education Policy Center, write in an online editorial published by The Denver Post. Almost half of Colorado's 178 districts serve rural areas exclusively.

The researchers point to the four reform models for under-performing schools outlined by the Obama administration as examples of policies that won't work in rural areas. Rural areas will have too hard a time finding qualified staff to replace fired principals and teachers if they follow the turnaround model, which requires under-performing schools to replace the principal and at least half the teachers.

The restart model, which would re-open low achieving schools as charters, is also impractical for rural areas. Miller and Hansen argue that charter schools are not allowed by law in many states with large rural populations: Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Some small towns where charter schools are legal will likely have a reluctance to turn their only school over to new management.

The closure model requires low-achieving schools to shut down and send students to another school in the same district, but many rural areas only have one school per district or would have to send students up to 30 miles away, Miller and Hansen write.

The one policy that the experts might work in rural areas is the transformation model, which "requires the district to replace the failing school's principal plus institute such other new policies as comprehensive instructional reform, extended school days or years, and more teacher planning time," the researchers write. However, they qualify that hope by speculating "effective replacement leaders may be even harder than effective teachers to find in sparsely populated places."

The researchers call for the Education Department to listen to suggestions from rural educators at its recent meeting with them. "With viable Race to the Top options instead of ill-fitting urban hand-me-downs, many rural schools may emerge whole from the economic downturn," Miller and Hansen write. "Better still, improved schools may become the economic engines for struggling rural communities in Colorado and across the country." (Read more)