Okay, so I forgot to put the statistics up for March, but at least I remembered this month. At the end of February the SIG's website had 1788. This morning at 7:30am EST we had 2959 hits - an increase of 1171 in the past sixty days.

According to our StatCounter feature, we had 573 unique visitors during the month of April - 492 of which were first time users and 81 were repeat offenders. This is an average of 19 people a day visiting our site.

While the majority of these visitors have come from the United States, we have also had visitors from Canada, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, India, Israel, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Turkey, South Africa, and Australia.

Popular pages this past month included:

• Education Review Seeking Book Reviewers
• Rural Ed SIG Business Meeting
• ruralsig.blogspot.com/2006/03/Education Review Publishes Brief Reviews for March 2006
• More Blogging About Rural Education and Small Schools

Finally, the average visitor spent from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, with seven visitors spending more than an hour. Until next month...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, AERA, rural, education

A message from Gene V Glass (glass@ASU.EDU) to EDREV@ASU.EDU

Education Review is an open access electronic journal publishing reviews of books in education. The Education Review has published 1,500 reviews since its inception in 1998. All reviews are freely accessible on the internet at

A message from Gustavo Fischman (fischman@ASU.EDU) to EDREV@ASU.EDU.

Reseñas Educativas/Education Review es una publicación académica con formato electrónico de reseñas de libros sobre educación. Reseñas Educativas/Education Review, se creo en 1998 y desde entonces ha publicado casi 1,500 reseñas. Todas las reseñas pueden ser consultadas gratuitamente em la siguiente dirección

A few more from Mr. Rural ED.

NREA Mini Grant Program
By michaellarnold

This just in from the National Rural Education Association home office in Norman, Oklahoma: Please be reminded the deadline to make application for the 2006-2007 NREA Mini Grant Program is May 1, 2006. The NREA Mini Grant Program is sponsored...

NREA CARES Award
By michaellarnold

This announcement is from the National Rural Education Association. Great American Financial Resources Incorporated has entered into a partnership with the NREA to sponsor the NREA CARES Award. This award will be presented to a rural school district in recognition...

And one from Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes ~ Edu_RSS Most Recent - RSS old.

USDA Announces $20 Million For Rural Distance Learning and Telemedicine - Farm Futures

Agriculture Under Secretary for Rural Development Thomas Dorr announced the availability of $20 million in grants to rural communities to strengthen distance learning and telemedicine programs in rural America. "The specialized health care and enhanced ed Online Learning Update, April 18, 2006.

A few from various blogs about rural education in Missouri, Arkansas, and Ohio.

Missouri Attorney General's Objection to Forest Sales

11 hours ago by george@dirtygreek.org ... get it up here and at the FIR Project blog earlierÂ… so much news, so littletimeÂ… MissouriÂ’s Attorney General Jay Nixon is formal objecting to the sale ofland in the Mark Twain National Forest to pay for rural education funding ...
Dirty Greek - http://www.dirtygreek.org

We're Rural Arkansans and Proud of It!

14 Apr 2006 by McClave The Rural Education Preservation Alliance announced that it will pursue supportfor legislation that would protect rural school districts in Arkansas. Apparently,the State Board of Education is considering shutting down the Paron ...
nwapolitics.com - mcclave's Manifesto - http://www.nwapolitics.com/blog/index.php?blog=7

It's Monday, so what are ya' gonna' do anyway?

17 Apr 2006 by Pat Lynch A Little Rock man upset with the defeat of a bill aimed at keeping a tiny SalineCounty high school open by loosening curriculum standards announced Friday thathe’s formed a group to advocate for rural education during the 2007 regular ...
Lynch at Large - http://lynchlarge.blogspot.com

Hutchinson Stresses Commitment to Rural Education

11 Apr 2006 by Debbie Pelley Mike Bebee has convinced many superintendents across the state that he is afriend of rural education. However, Jeremey Hutchinson is quoted in the paper ascomplaining that Attorney General Mike Beebe’s office was working behind the ...
Arkansas Watch - http://arkansaswatch.blogspot.com

I'll write something positive later

17 Apr 2006 by Jason “We’ve been under tremendous pressure in rural education,” said Brenda Haas, alongtime Lawrence County educator who now heads the Ohio Appalachian Center forHigher Education, based at Shawnee State. “We still have a mind-set that ...
Murmur, Ing. - http://jakeburgett.blogspot.com

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, AERA, small schools, rural, education

From my Yahoo news service (although this one came from the virtual school search terms).

Advani's 'Media Centre' draws rural folk
rediff.com Sun, 16 Apr 2006 7:40 AM PDT

Urchins and urbanites, villagers and VIPs crowd around the school van-turned-Media Centre on Wheels with journalists on board filing their stories as it halts at every welcome point along the 6,000-km Rajkot-Delhi Yatra route.

From the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development SmartBrief.

Study: In rural Oregon, funding linked with achievement gap

A national study of small and rural districts revealed that, in Oregon, rural districts that get the most tax money have higher student achievement than rural districts that receive less money. Researcher Jerry Johnson also found a strong correlation between student test scores and teacher qualifications in rural schools. The Oregonian (Portland) (4/18)

Tags: AERA, small schools, rural, education

Since most of the blogging entries that I refer you to are about rural education, I figured that an entry that focused solely upon small schools was in order. I found these via Google's new blog search feature.

Educating Education Writers: Great Article on Special Education

17 Apr 2006 by Liz "It is unreasonable to expect small schools to provide the level of expertise thatis needed for each specific disability." Special education wasn't part of the plan.When Lisa and Kelly Linton's second son, Jeffrey, was born, ...
I Speak of Dreams - http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/

Reflections and Accomplishments

17 Apr 2006 by Marvin Hoot 1989-1990: My wife, Apryl, and I were heavily involved with community members,throughout the EACS district, in saving our small schools from consolidation.I was a member of the research committee for one of the community organizations ...
Marvin Hoot - A Voice for Integrity - http://marvinhoot.blogspot.com

"small schools" meeting

6 Jul 2005 by peterlevine Today is CIRCLE's event at the National Press Club on the civic potential ofthe "small schools" movement. In all, thousands of new high schools are beingcreated in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other big cities. ...
Peter Levine - http://www.peterlevine.ws/mt/

Education Reform: file it for future reading

18 Apr 2006 by IowaEnnui I'm not suggesting that small schools actively hide their minority scores toavoid the NCLB sticks, but running complicated stats to provide some level ofreporting data probably doesn’t seem worth the time and costs, particularly if ...
Things Going Round & Round - http://iowaennui.blogspot.com

New York City: random searches for public school students

18 Apr 2006 by WorldProutAssembly For the vast majority of the city’s youth, however, there are the large schoolsthat increasingly resemble holding pens and a panoply of often ill-conceived “smallschools” that promise a better education but, for the most part, ...
World Prout Assembly - http://www.worldproutassembly.org/

Small Schools Institute gets high marks

20 Jan 2006 It was only fitting that Florida, the state with the largest high schools in thenation and the lowest high school completion rates, would provide the settingfor the 5th Annual Small Schools Institute earlier this week. ...
Mike Klonsky's Small Talk - http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-6z6IhP08cqXp9kfshYQPv87gCfJyFg--

Asa and Beebe differ over school closure.

14 Apr 2006 by proud conservative Small Schools are incredibly important in Arkansas. Schools help define a community,and when you close a school you take away an incredibly important part of thatcommunity. Beebe and his consolidation friends are wrong on this issue. ...
Arkansas Family Coalition- arkfam.com - http://arkansasfamilycoalition.blogspot.com

Notes from the Blogosphere: Oakland, BayCES, Privatization & the AFT

23 Feb 2006 We of course, had great hopes for Oakland's small-schools movement. But notif small schools becomes another code word for privately-managed charters. ...A great discussion of small schools has started on the AFT blog at: ...
Mike Klonsky's Small Talk - http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-6z6IhP08cqXp9kfshYQPv87gCfJyFg--?cq=1

Peter Majoy recently heard Jonathan Kozol, and the...

23 Jan 2006 by Jim Horn There are good small schools which are good because each of them "is defined notonly by its size but also by its sense of mission, with a teaching staff thattruly wants to be there in the first place." Kozol praises Debbie Meier's ...
Schools Matter - http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, AERA, small schools, rural, education

I found this on Google blog search.

Navigating Resources for Rural Schools

25 Jan 2006 NCES has recently updated its rural education website, Navigating Resourcesfor Rural Schools. The updated website is part of a series of new developmentsunderway to increase access and make the data more consistent and useful to the ...
NCES What's New - http://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, AERA, small schools, rural, education

Reseñas Educativas/Education Review es una publicaciónacadémica con formato electrónico de reseñas de librossobre educación. Reseñas Educativas/Education Review,se creo en 1998 y desde entonces ha publicado casi1,500 reseñas. Todas las reseñas pueden ser consultadas gratuitamenteen la siguiente dirección


http://edrev.asu.edu

Reseñas Educativas/Education Review publica reseñas enespañol, portugués e inglés. El siguiente libro acabade ser reseñado:

Colom, Antoni, J. (2004). A (Des)construçao do Conhecimento Pedagógico: Novas perspectivas para a educação São Paulo, ARTMED

Reseñado por Fabio Chacón Empire State College

Gentili, Pablo & Suárez, Daniel (Orgs.) (2004). Reforma educacional e luta democrática: um debate sobre a ação sindical docente na América Latina. São Paulo: Cortez.

Resenhado por Sandra Sales UERJ

Esta reseña puede ser consultada en Reseñas Recientes en la homepage de la revista:


___________________________________________
Editor para Español y Portugués
Gustavo E. Fischman
Arizona State University
Laboratorio de Políticas Públicas (UERJ) Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Editor General (inglês)
Gene V Glass
Arizona State University

Editora de Reseñas Breves (inglês)
Kate Corby
Michigan State University
___________________________________________________________

Education Review is an electronic journal publishing reviews of recent books in education. The Education Reviewhas published over 1400 reviews since its inception in 1998. All reviews are freely accessible on the internet at


http://edrev.asu.edu

The Education Review publishes reviews in Spanish and Portuguese as well as in English. The following book has just been reviewed:

Colom, Antoni, J. (2004). A (Des)construçao do Conhecimento Pedagógico: Novas perspectivas para a educação São Paulo, ARTMED

Reseñado por Fabio Chacón Empire State College

Gentili, Pablo & Suárez, Daniel (Orgs.) (2004). Reforma educacional e luta democrática: um debate sobre a ação sindical docente na América Latina. São Paulo: Cortez.

Resenhado por Sandra SalesUERJ

This review can be accessed as the first itemunder Recent Reviews on the journal homepage.


http://edrev.asu.edu/indexs.html
___________________________________________________
Gustavo Fischman
Editor for Spanish & Portuguese
fischman@asu.edu

Gene V Glass
Editor
glass@asu.edu

Kate Corby
Brief Reviews Editor
corby@msu.edu

Tags: Education Review, AERA, rural, education

A message from Gene V Glass (glass@ASU.EDU).

Education Review is an open access electronicjournal publishing reviews of books in education. The Education Review has published 1,500 reviewssince its inception in 1998. All reviews are freelyaccessible on the internet at

http://edrev.asu.edu

The Education Review publishes reviews in Spanishand Portuguese as well as in English. The following book has just been reviewed:

Singh, Amrik. (2004). Fifty years of higher education in India: The role of the University Grants Commission. New Delhi: SAGE Publications.

Reviewed by Shaljan Areepattamannil, Queen's University.

Tollefson, James W. (Ed.). (2002). Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Reviewed by Jennifer Guzmán, University of California, Los Angeles.

This review can be accessed under Recent Reviewson the journal homepage http://edrev.asu.edu.
___________________________________________________
Gene V Glass, Editor
glass@asu.edu

Kate Corby, Brief Reviews Editor
http://edrev.asu.edu/brief/

Gustavo Fischman, Editor for Spanish & Portuguese
http://edrev.asu.edu/indexs.html

Tags: Education Review, AERA, rural, education

A few more courtesy of Mr. Rural ED.

Senator Baucus on Rural Education
By michaellarnold

Max Baucus (D-Montana) is one of the few U.S. Senators who has something specifically to say on his website about rural schools: Rural Education: I'm very proud of Montana's schools, and I've always worked to ensure that all of our...

Local Control
By michaellarnold

One value that seems to be common among rural educators is the belief in the local control of schools. I'm not quite sure what that means in practice, particularly given the plethora of federal and state education mandates. Senator Wayne...

And from Distance-Educator.com's Daily News.

USDA ANNOUNCES $20 MILLION AVAILABLE FOR DISTANCE LEARNING AND TELEMEDICINE IN RURAL COMMUNITIES

WASHINGTON, April 13, 2006- Agriculture Under Secretary for Rural Development Thomas C. Dorr today announced the availability of $20 million in grants to rural communities to strengthen distance learning and telemedicine programs in rural America. Read the Full Story

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, AERA, small schools, rural, education

Still nothing from either the Google news alert or the Yahoo! news alert services that I have signed up for. But I did manage to find this one from e-School News ESN Tools for Schools.

Desire2Learn Brings Qualified Teachers to Alabama Rural Areas Through a State-Wide Distance Learning Initiative

From Desire2Learn Inc., April 4--Desire2Learn, a provider of enterprise eLearning solutions announced that the Alabama Department of Education has selected Desire2Learn's Learning Environment and Learning Object Repository to provide a state-wide distance learning initiative (ACCESS Distance Learning) to provide high-quality classroom courses and teachers, via technology....

http://www.desire2learn.com

And this one is not specifically about rural education, but the potential loss of rural life for a track of geography. It came in the Yahoo news service I receive for virtual schools.

Not fixing Louisiana levees now a distinct possibility
Detroit News Sat, 15 Apr 2006 1:09 AM PDT

BURAS, La. -- This small town is a sliver of land wedged between the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, and when Hurricane Katrina made landfall here in August, a raging storm surge wrecked virtually every storefront, office and home.

Tags: AERA, small schools, rural, education

A message from Gene V Glass (glass@ASU.EDU) to EDREV@ASU.EDU.

Education Review is an open access electronic journal publishing reviews of books in education. The Education Review has published 1,500 reviews since its inception in 1998. All reviews are freely accessible on the internet at

http://edrev.asu.edu

The Education Review publishes reviews in Spanish and Portuguese as well as in English. The following book has just been reviewed:

David, Barton and Tusting, Karin. (Eds.) (2005). Beyond Communities of Practice: Language, Power and Social Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Reviewed by Steven Barfield, University of Westminster.

Ybarra, Raul E. & López, Nancy (Eds.). (2004). Creating Alternative Discourses in the Education of Latinos and Latinas: A Reader. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Reviewed by Billie Gastic, Temple University.

This review can be accessed under Recent Reviews on the journal homepage http://edrev.asu.edu.
___________________________________________________
Gene V Glass, Editor
glass@asu.edu

Kate Corby, Brief Reviews Editor
http://edrev.asu.edu/brief/

Gustavo Fischman, Editor for Spanish & Portuguese
http://edrev.asu.edu/indexs.html

Tags: Education Review, AERA, rural, education

Ayers, William (2004) Educando para la libertad: compromiso moral y acción ética en el salón de clase. Boston: Beacon Press. (Título original en ingles Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical action in the Classroom) .

Reseñado por Ramin Farahmandpur Traducción al español de Juanita Vélez Olivera y Diana Vélez Olivera con asesoría de Jorge Ossa Londoño

Aznar Díaz, I., Fernández Martín, F. D. e Hinojo Lucena, F. J. (Coords.) (2005). Teoría y Praxisen la formación integral de personas mayores. Una visión interdisciplinar. Badajoz: @becedario.

Reseñado por Mª Pilar Cáceres Reche Universidad de Granada

Esta reseña puede ser consultada en Reseñas Recientes en la homepage de la revista:

Ayers, William (2004) Educando para la libertad: compromiso moral y acción ética en el salón de clase. Boston: Beacon Press. (Título original en ingles Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical action in the Classroom)

Reseñado por Ramin Farahmandpur Traducción al español de Juanita Vélez Olivera y Diana Vélez Olivera con asesoría de Jorge Ossa Londoño)

Aznar Díaz, I., Fernández Martín, F. D. e Hinojo Lucena, F. J. (Coords.) (2005). Teoría y Praxisen la formación integral de personas mayores. Una visión interdisciplinar. Badajoz: @becedario.

Reseñado por Mª Pilar Cáceres Reche Universidad de Granada

This review can be accessed as the first item under Recent Reviews on the journal homepage.

Gustavo Fischman
Editor for Spanish & Portuguese
fischman@asu.edu

Gene V Glass
Editor
glass@asu.edu

Kate Corby
Brief Reviews Editor
corby@msu.edu

Tags: Education Review, AERA, rural, education

Once again a few from Mr. Rural ED.

The Broad Prize for Urban Education
By michaellarnold

The Broad Foundation has announced that five urban school districts are finalists for the 2006 Broad Prize for Urban Education, an annual $1 million prize given to urban school districts that have made the greatest increases in student achievement. The...

A Big Eastern Syndicate
By michaellarnold

It was Lucy Van Pelt in A Charlie Brown Christmas who spilled the beans that Christmas was actually run a big eastern syndicate. It's starting to look like rural education is too. A case in point is the upcoming revision...

Rural School Grant Writing Myths
By michaellarnold

The Top 5 Grant Writing Myths from Education Strategy Group's Grant Writing for Rural Schools and Communities Workshop 1. Rural schools can't get grants. Lots of rural schools get grants and there are some grants that are specifically for rural...

NCES Locale Code Revision
By michaellarnold

The National Center for Education Statistics has released its revised 8-category locale code classification system. The new system incorporates changes in the Office of Management and Budget’s definition of “rural” that were adopted for the 2000 Decennial Census. At first...

Immigration Issues in Rural America
By michaellarnold

Immigration has been a hot issue in the news. Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen offers a perspective from rural Colorado. Among the issues, are language and cultural differences and the effects these new immigrants have on the local schools and...

High Speed Internet Access
By michaellarnold

High speed internet access is no longer a luxury for rural communities wanting to participate in the knowledge economy. Voters in Timnath, Colorado have voted to offer free wireless internet to all 223 residents. A farming community between Ft. Collins...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, AERA, small schools, rural, education

Some final thoughts on AERA 2006. While I wasn't able to attend all of the Rural Education SIG's session, I did make most of them and thought we had a diverse and interesting program. I was also pleased with the fact that there were a number of sessions outside of the SIG with rural in the title, so that bodes well for our area.

During the conference, I spoke with as many of the rural presenters (both from our SIG and outside of our SIG) about obtaining copies of their papers to post to the SIG's website. This should serve as a reminder that if you presented a paper or roundtable to send those along to me and over the coming weekend I'll try and get that page created and the papers that I have to date linked in.

I had also hoped that I would do some session blogging at AERA. By this I meant posting my comments on some of the papers that I heard about. I didn't get to this (other than the notes from our business meeting) and my paper notes just aren't good enough to allow for this, but if others wanted to post their comments on various Rural Education SIG sessions, send them along to me and I'll post them to the website.

Finally, during the business meeting we spoke a great deal about membership. One of the things that didn't come up that I found out from another SIG that I'm a member of is that AERA is changing how sessions are allocated for next year. In the past the number of sessions that our SIG would receive was based solely on our membership numbers. In this coming year, AERA will be using a formula that considers both the number of members that we have and the number of conference proposals directly submitted to the SIG. I haven't been able to find out what the formula is, but this means that in addition to increasing our membership numbers, we also need to ensure that we have a health number of proposals being submitted to our SIG by the 01 August deadline.

Tags: AERA 2006, AERA, small schools, rural, education

As promised in the last entry, the 2006 Dissertation Award winners for AERA's Rural Education SIG are as follows:

1. Caitlin Howley
2. Jerry Johnson
3. Stephanie Starcher

Thanks for Dr. Paul Theobald and the awards committee for their work in this selection process.

In the coming weeks, I will endeavor to obtain copies of these dissertations to post to the website. This has actually been a project that has been in the works for a number of weeks now, with all of the previous winners having also been contacted.

For your own reference, past winners of the dissertation award include:

2005

1. Dr. Kim Jones: The Influences of Context on Superintendents Allocation of Time (Ohio University)
2. Dr. Terri Hopkins: Gender Issues in Mathematics Achievement in Tennessee: Does Rural School Locale Matter? (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
3. Dr. Eric Brown: The Effect of Number of School-To-School Transitions on District Performance (Ohio Univerrsity)

2004

1. Dr. Brenda Haas: A comparative case study of administrator stability in two rural Appalachian school districts (Ohio University)

2003

1. Dr. Alice Samson-Cordele received the Rural Education Dissertation of the Year award for her study Exploring the Relationship Between a Small Rural School in Northeast Georgia and Its Community: An Image-Based Study Using Participant-Produced Photographs. Dr. Samson-Cordele received her doctoral degree from the University of Georgia in Athens. One of the reviewers stated that Samson-Cordeles dissertation was & quintessentially rural in character, and the dissertation wrestles with profoundly rural interpretations of central issues in education and sociology. Dr. Samson-Cordele is on the faculty at North Georgia State College and University in Dahlonega, GA
2. Dr. Phillip E. Morgan, for his research, entitled A Comparative Study of Rural School District Cooperatives: A Qualitative Study. He received a doctoral degree from the Washington State University College of Education in May 2001. Dr. Morgan is currently on the faculty in the Department of Teaching and Learning at WSU. A reviewer commented that&The rural context for the work is well developed both in educational historical terms and in terms of cooperative theory.
3. Dr. Laura Payne-Bourcy received the third place award for his research for her study, Multiple Literacies on Main Street and in the Academy: A Longitudinal Study of Two Working-Class, Rural Adolescents. Dr. Payne-Bourcy received her doctoral degree from Syracuse University. Reviewers found that the dissertation addressed interesting questions about intellectual, with considerable voice and reflection. Dr. Payne-Bourcey is in research and development working in a cooperative with 18 rural schools in Watertown, New York

Once we create this section of the website, I will post a message informing everyone where to locate this new resource.

Tags: AERA 2006, AERA, small schools, rural, education

Well, the Rural Education SIG had its business meeting earlier this evening. It started with Stephen A. Swidler of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln discussing the research project that culminated in his recent book, Naturally Small: Teaching and Learning in the Last One-Room Schools. This talk introduced us to two one-room schools: one with a very traditional orientation and one with a very progressive orientation (largely based upon the individual teacher in both schools).

In the traditional school, the older female teacher had been the teacher at that school for most of her life. She began at the age of 18 with her four weeks of training and a provisional license and had taught at that same school for the next thirty-forty years. Originally from the community and a graduate of that one-room school, she very much shared the values of the community. Her teaching style was a very traditional one, where she would instruct each of the students individually in their grade level and subject area for 15 minutes and then send them back to their desk to complete some form of seat work taken from a commercially available textbook/workbook series. Then the next student would come up and so on. This would continue throughout the day for twenty-five or thirty individual sessions. Remarkable, all of her twelve students in this K-8 school were at grade level in all subject areas. While this teacher was valued a great deal by the community, as her style was structured in a way maintained a way of life that everyone was accustomed to, but realized was going away in the name of progress. On the other hand, she was largely disliked by her own students.

The second school, a more progressive one, was staffed by a teacher who was not from the community and did not even live in the community while he was teaching there. He was from an urban area and had graduated from a large school, he even continued to live in the larger center nearby the community that the school was located in. Unlike the structured lessons of the teacher at the traditional one-room school, this teacher would instruct his class in a full group setting, even though he had eleven students that spanned all levels of this K-8 school. This instruction would usually take the form of conversations or discussions with the class that would last for an hour or more, usually based upon some provocative reading. While his philosophy for teaching was that he wanted the kids to be able to think for themselves and not appear stupid (as he felt that people who appear stupid get taken advantage of), it was also interesting to note that all of his students were also at grade level in all of their subject areas (something that was greatly valued in both of these communities). This teacher was also loved by his students and because of their consistent progress, respected by the community.

The sad part of this story is that recent legislation in Nebraska has consolidated all of these one room school districts into larger neighbouring rural districts and it appears many, if not all, of these one room schools will disappear.

The other business of the SIG was conducted, which included the awarding of the dissertation awards (more on those in a future post), the treasurer's report (our fiscal situation is healthy), and an update on the website (which included a request for anyone who had anything of interest to the SIG to send it to mkb-at-uga-dot-edu and it would be added to our regular updates).

While there was no election of officers (as our terms are for three years), the Program Chair David Callejo Perez had indicated that if there was someone willing to serve the final year of his term, he would be willing to step aside. Kai Schafft and Patricia Hardre volunteered to be Program Co-Chairs for next year's conference in Chicago.

Tags: AERA 2006, AERA, small schools, rural, education

I received this message from Kerri Wenger (kwenger@eou.edu) earlier today.

Hello, Michael,

I'm attaching the executive summary paper for a session on rural teacher education (Division K) that Rural SIG members may find of interest. Three papers related to rural teacher preparation across the Pacific Northwest will be presented at the interactive session. Also discussed will be the nature of teacher educator practitioner research in rural settings.

Cheers,
Kerri Wenger

So, if you receive this entry/message in time, please check out this session while you are in San Fancisco.

Tags: AERA 2006, AERA, small schools, rural, education

A message from AERA Executive Director, Felice J. Levine

Dear AERA Members:

As bags and boxes are being closed and as all of us (members, staff, and participants alike) depart for the Annual Meeting, I want to take a moment to wish everyone safe travels. This year’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco is already the largest ever based on pre-registration, and we are expecting one of the very best. The level of intellectual engagement and energy is palpable. I know everyone on staff has done—and is dedicated to doing all that we can do—to make the meeting a major success.

Before you depart, I want to again call your attention to the Town Hall Meeting to discuss the draft Standards for Reporting on Research Methods. In my March column in the Educational Researcher ( http://eloop.goldlasso.com/redir.php?s=4719&u=2549258&f=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aera.net%2FuploadedFiles%2FPublications%2FJournals%2FEducational_Researcher%2F3502%2F08ERv35n2_FromTheDesk.pdf ), I talked about the work of the Task Force on Reporting of Research Methods in AERA Publications and encouraged attendees to come to the Town Hall Meeting scheduled for Sunday, April 9th at 2:15-3:45pm in Moscone Center South, Esplanade Ballroom, Section 309. I also indicated that the Task Force planned to post a draft for wide distribution and comment before the Annual Meeting as well as distribute it onsite in San Francisco.

I am pleased to announce that, with the excellent support of the AERA Information Technology staff, the draft Standards are now available at http://eloop.goldlasso.com/redir.php?s=4719&u=2549258&f=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aera.net%2F%3Fid%3D1194. Also, and equally as important, the Task Force seeks comments and has launched an Open Comment Period through April 30, 2006. The Task Force will then undertake a further revision and submit recommended draft Standards for Reporting on Research Methods for Council review and action in June 2006.

There are many other highlights of the Annual Meeting and the Association. I wanted, however, to announce the availability of the draft Standards, the Open Comment Period, and the Town Hall Meeting to contribute to this effort as the Task Force continues and completes this work. Many thanks in advance.

Cordially,
Felice

Felice J. Levine, Ph.D.Executive Director

Tags: AERA 2006, AERA, small schools, rural, education

Just a quick note. I will try and continue to update this space while I am in San Francisco. Havings said that, in the same way I provided a review of rural education sessions at the QUIG conference that I attended and posted them to this space (see Conference Presentations on Rural Education), anyone who would like to send in their own notes from any of the Rural Education SIG's sessions or any other sessions at AERA (or any other conference that you attend), I will post them to this space for everyone who is not able to join us in San Francisco.

So, send your summaries and/or reviews to me at mkb-at-uga-dot-edu and I will post them as soon as I can.

Also, if you have a paper, roundtable paper, or electronic poster dealing with rural education that you would like posted to the Rural Education SIG's website, please send them to me and I will post them for you so that everyone can access them.

Tags: AERA 2006, AERA, small schools, rural, education

A message from Gene V Glass (glass@ASU.EDU) to EDREV@ASU.EDU.

Education Review is an open access all-electronic journal of book reviews residing at

Tags: Education Review, AERA, rural, education

Please note that the "Conferences and Events" page of the AERA Rural Education SIG's website has been updated to reflect a more general listing of various conferences and events dealing with small schools and rural education.

Tags: AERA, small schools, rural, education

Please note that:

Mr. Rural ED has Moved
By Michael Arnold

Mr. Rural ED has moved to a new weblog service. The new service is more powerful allowing for multiple authors and more flexibility in design. The new site also allows users to subscribe to an RSS news feed of the blog. Visit the new home of Mr. Rural ED at http://mrruraled.typepad.com/

These entries below are summaries from his new site. I'm no sure how much of this is moving old entries to the new site and how much is new content, but I have provided them all here.

Charateristics of Rural School Districts
By michaellarnold

A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics introduces data from the fifth administration of the School and Staffing Survey (SASS). It is the most extensive sample survey of teachers and administrators in the U.S. Characteristics of Schools,...

REL Contracts Announced
By michaellarnold

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education issued a press release announcing that the department had awarded new 5-year contracts to 10 Regional Educational Laboratories. There is some information in the announcement that I didn't have when I posted Four Labs...

AERA Rural Education SIG Sessions
By michaellarnold

The Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association is being held April 7 - 11 in San Francisco. The sessions sponsored by the Rural Education Special Interest Group are listed below. Users can do an online search of the...

State Funding for Out-of-State Rural Students
By michaellarnold

By Rural School Blogger (AKA Stephen Bohrer) I understand from talking to Paula Stephenson, director of the Colorado Rural Schools Caucus, that an amendment to the Colorado school finance bill that passed out of the Colorado House of Representatives may...

Four Labs Flip
By michaellarnold

The U.S. Department of Education has annouced that four of the ten regional educational laboratories have been awarded to new organizations. The RELs constitute the largest investment by the federal government into rural education research. The new lab contract holders...

Navigating Resources for Rural Schools
By michaellarnold

I hadn't been there for awhile, so I was surprised to see a new look for the U.S. Department of Education's Navigating Resources for Rural Schools site. It's a definite improvement over the look of the old site, which included...

NREA Research Symposium
By michaellarnold

Michael L. Arnold Friday, March 24, 2006 This notice came in from Bob Mooneyham, Executive Director of the National Rural Education Association. ---------- The National Rural Education Association will host the NREA Research Symposium on October 21-22, 2006, at the...

Rural Middle School Student Homework Management
By michaellarnold

Michael L. Arnold Thursday, March 23, 2006 A recently article from "The Journal of Research in Rural Education" makes the a contribution to our understanding of differences between rural and nonrural students. Authors Janzhong Xu and Lyn Corno examine homework...

Education Service Agencies Supporting Rural Schools
By michaellarnold

Michael L. Arnold Tuesday, March 21, 2006 An article in the March 2006 issue of "The School Administrator" describes the ways intermediate school districts are providing support to rural districts. Author Hobart Harmon uses examples from across the country to...

A Perfect Storm on the Great Plains
By michaellarnold

Michael L. Arnold Thursday, March 16, 2006 A March 16 report in the Denver Post describes a perfect storm of factors creating population declines in the Great Plains. Author Robert Sanchez (Plains Grow More Lonesome) cites minimal economic development in...

The 65% Solution
By michaellarnold

Michael L. Arnold Tuesday, February 28, 2006 The Denver Post has done a great public service by educating the public about a proposed ballot measure that would require Colorado's pubic school to allocated at least 65% of their current operating...

NRCRES Website
By michaellarnold

Michael L. Arnold Friday, February 17, 2006 The other day I was wondering whether the National Research Center on Rural Education Support (NRCRES) had gotten a website yet. Son of a gun, they do! It's a pretty good-looking site. The...

Update on Colorado HR 1150
By michaellarnold

Michael L. Arnold Sunday, February 12, 2006 Last week the Colorado House Committee on Education voted down HR 1150, a bill to establish statewide standards for when public schools in Colorado could start and end the school year. The bill...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, AERA, small schools, rural, education