President Obama’s FY2013 budget request includes a discretionary funding increase of $1.7 billion for education, maintains critical formula funding that many rural schools depend on, and proposes new grant opportunities to support innovation. Many rural schools are forming partnerships to increase their capacity to compete for federal dollars, overcome their unique challenges, and increase student achievement.
On Feb. 22 at 3 p.m. ET, join John White, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Rural Outreach, and Sterling Speirn, president & CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for a Twitter chat about partnerships, innovation, and education reform in high-need rural schools. The Kellogg Foundation has supported rural applicants in the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund grant competition, and supports programs that propel vulnerable children to achieve success in many rural communities.
This is your chance to ask us questions and to describe unique rural partnerships and innovative solutions that are helping to overcome the challenges of distance and isolation in your rural communities. Send tweets at any time before or during the Twitter chat using the hashtag #ruraled. White will respond live @RuralED and Speirn will tweet @WK_Kellogg_Fdn.
Following the event, you can find a summary of the Q&A session at www.ed.gov/blog.
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We are able to work closely with a military installation and a mining operation that are located in our district. They bring a wealth of information and knowledge covering a broad spectrum study. But due to our remote location, we do not have the economic capabilities to deal with bandwidth issues for our technological needs for our students. Being surrounded by this knowledge and our students are unable to adequately tap in and expand their knowledge base. It would seem the closer a school is to larger populated areas the more accessible one is to technology.
I agree that the more wealthy, urban schools have better funding but I feel the challenge allows me to be more creative. One of the blessings of being rural is our ag. extension agents. Without them, I could not extend the learning in my science class to real world scenarios as easily. They often give support and have great contacts with US Forestry personnel as well. As a biology teacher, it is great to partner with these groups to show how our rural and agricultural heritage and modern science are coming together!
The only time I don’t appreciate the difference between urban and rural is when our schools are all graded the same way for the sake of “equity” but it is not fair because of the unequal distribution of resources. Therefore, it is not truly equitable.
Rural school are being gutted in NY State by the unfair distribution of funding by Governor Cuomo. Adavanced classes, music, art, business, and assistance to struggling students, are all being cut from rural school in NY State. These will not be competitive in college or the workforce.