Rural education in Missouri: in need of reform

Looking at rural education

Rachel B. Tompkins at Education Week has a wonderful article breaking down some misconceptions and misperceptions about rural schools.

Anyone who, like me, has lived in a small or rural town understands that the school is often the town hub. Entertainment, nostalgia and hope center on the school. And with the smaller scale comes a more intimate knowledge of teachers, administration and classes. Tompkins notes that contrary to popular belief, rural areas are becoming more diverse, more impoverished and more prolific. Anyone who believes rural communities are a thing of the past would be shocked to learn that 22 percent (10 million) of public school students live in rural communities.

This means that some of the poorest communities in our country are serving almost a quarter of its students. And because of their small populations and spread-out nature, those rural areas don’t always have access to some of the benefits we see in urban and suburban districts.

Among the concerns of rural districts is an inability to compete with urban teacher salaries or offer additional training, poor facilities in need of repair, transportation concerns and an inordinate tax burden to tiny and already ill-equipped communities.

“Nationwide, the 800 school districts in the poorest rural communities serve a school-age population of over 950,000 students, and more than 32 percent of them are Title I students. That rate is as high as that in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, or Philadelphia. Further, students in these poorest “Rural 800” districts are 26 percent African-American, 20 percent Hispanic, and 10 percent Native American,” says Tompkins.

Responding to rural education needs is an effort that, sadly, has been on the backburner of education reform both state and nation-wide. While federal funding is needed to supplement the tax burden, I’d love to see a discussion focused on rural education in Missouri. How can we offer incentives for great teachers? What can we learn from communities that know their school system inside and out? We hear a lot about the problems of urban districts in Missouri, but a great deal of our state is rural. There are a lot of similarities, as we’ve seen with both rural Wyaconda and St. Louis city schools losing accreditation. There are also some very serious limitations in rural communities that demand solutions we take for granted in urban areas.

Education is such an important component of economic development, individual success and is a necessity and a right for every child. We cannot move forward as a state if the education of our rural communities is left behind.