When thinking about innovation in America, our thoughts typically turn to tech-driven creative capitals like New York City and San Francisco. Yet this report from the Rural Opportunities Consortium, which argues that rural education is primed for innovation, demonstrates that change can also be bred outside of cities.
Author Terry Ryan, president of the Idaho Charter School Network and a former member of the Thomas B. Fordham team, focuses on three main advancements that rural schools have adopted: expanding school choice through charter schools, introducing new online technologies, and increasing collaboration between charter schools and local districts. All three give rural schools and districts greater autonomy and freedom to experiment with new programs and concepts.
To prove that rural areas can successfully implement these changes, Ryan profiles districts that have instituted them. For example, the Dublin City School District in southeast Georgia has followed in the footsteps of big cities like New Orleans and Washington, D.C. by embracing charter-driven school choice. Dublin’s increased administrative flexibility has allowed them to pilot new ideas, develop more direct lines of accountability, and ultimately raise high school graduation rates. Another example, the Vail School District in Arizona, created Beyond Textbooks, an online tool that serves schools and districts in Arizona, Wyoming, and Idaho by facilitating the exchange of lesson plans and resources among its roughly ten thousand members. It offers partner schools digital access to Vail’s fully standards-aligned curriculum and lesson materials, providing them with a low-cost alternative to purchasing traditional textbooks. And Idaho’s Upper Carmen Charter School has partnered with two neighboring school districts to share blended learning and early literacy programs that would be too difficult or costly to maintain independently. Sharing services has been a critical factor in the schools’ ability to provide a broad range of education choices to their students.
Using these case studies as models, the report recommends that policymakers break down the barriers to continued innovation by endorsing more school choice, relaxing administrative restrictions, and giving rural districts and charters the freedom to test new technologies. "Large chunks of the country’s interior are aging and seeing their younger residents migrate to population centers for employment," Terry notes. "The health of a rural community is intimately connected to the quality and availability of jobs, and to the effectiveness of the local schools....Business needs strong schools to prepare its workforce, and education needs business to employ its graduates." Quite right. And this report can serve as a worthy guide.
SOURCE: Terry Ryan, “Rural innovators in education: How can we build on what they are doing?,” Rural Opportunities Consortium of Idaho (May 2015).