More than 50% of America's schools today exist in rural settings. This book addresses the distinctiveness of rural school leaders, identifies issues encountered by administrators, faculty, and students, and concludes by proposing new standards for rural schools in general and their leaders. This book will be of special interest to everyone involved in the operation of a rural school district.
This book provides solutions to the vexing educational challenges that rural communities face and serves as a how-to guide for building college and career readiness within rural schools. Rural America's Pathways to College and Career shares practical tips that can be used by educators and community members to transform rural schools, help students develop essential skills, locate and train college- and career-ready advisors, establish business partnerships, build college readiness, leverage technology, build interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers, and understand how to pay for college. Based on research and drawing on best practice and poignant stories, Dalton shares examples of success and challenges from interviews conducted with over 200 individuals who have participated in programs across the country. By helping rural youth learn about the opportunities available and by providing them with the support they need to succeed, this book serves as an actionable guide to helping students in rural schools attain postsecondary school success.
Rural poverty encompasses a distinctive deprivation in quality of life related to a lack of educational support and resources as well as unique issues related to geographical, cultural, community, and social isolation. While there have been many studies and accommodations made for the impoverished in urban environments, those impoverished in rural settings have been largely overlooked and passed over by current policy. The Handbook of Research on Leadership and Advocacy for Children and Families in Rural Poverty is an essential scholarly publication that creates awareness and promotes action for the advocacy of children and families in rural poverty and recommends interdisciplinary approaches to support the cognitive, social, and emotional needs of children and families in poverty. Featuring a wide range of topics such as mental health, foster care, and public policy, this book is ideal for academicians, counselors, social workers, mental health professionals, early childhood specialists, school psychologists, administrators, policymakers, researchers, and students.
This teacher education textbook invites preservice and beginning teachers to think critically about the impact of rurality on their work and provides an overview of what it means to live, teach, learn, and thrive in rural communities. This book underscores the importance of teaching in rural schools as an act of social justice—work that dismantles spatial barriers to economic, social, and political justice. Teaching in Rural Places begins with a foundational section that addresses the importance of thinking about rural education in the U.S. as an educational environment with particular challenges and opportunities. The subsequent chapters address rural teaching within concentric circles of focus—from communities to schools to classrooms. Chapters provide concrete strategies for understanding rural communities, valuing rural ways of being, and teaching in diverse rural schools by addressing topics such as working with families, building professional networks, addressing trauma, teaching in multi-grade classrooms, and planning place-conscious instruction. The first of its kind, this comprehensive textbook for rural teacher education is targeted toward preservice and beginning teachers in traditional and alternative teacher education programs as well as new rural teachers participating in induction and mentoring programs. Teaching in Rural Places will help ensure that rural students have the well-prepared teachers they deserve.
"A collection of essays examining the various social, cultural, and economic intersections of rural place and global space, as viewed through the lens of education. Explores practices that offer both problems and possibilities for the future of rural schools and communities, in the United States and abroad"--Provided by publisher.
College Aspirations and Access in Working Class Rural Communities: The Mixed Signals, Challenges, and New Language First-Generation Students Encounter explores how a working class, rural environment influences rural students’ opportunities to pursue higher education and engage in the college choice process. Based on a case study with accounts from rural high school students and counselors, this book examines how these communities perceive higher education and what challenges arise for both rural students and counselors. The book addresses how college knowledge and university jargon illustrate the gap between rural cultural capital and higher education cultural capital. Insights about approaches to reduce barriers created by college knowledge and university jargon are shared and strategies for offering rural students pathways to learn academic language and navigate higher education are presented for both secondary and higher education institutions.
Developing Rural School Leaders combines a focus on rural education and school leadership development to illustrate how the teaching and learning conditions in rural schools can be enhanced through transformative leadership coaching. By unpacking literature related to rural school leadership development and using case studies to authentically illustrate the complexities involved in rural school leadership development, this book explores how leaders can develop their abilities to increase data-informed instructional decision making, create a culture that supports teaching and learning, and develop other leaders. Ultimately, this important book concludes with an exploration of the opportunities and challenges of developing rural school leaders.
Teacher leadership remains at the forefront of conversations in teacher education, with discussions on recruitment, retention, and effectiveness. Teachers are at the core of schooling, and the roles they assume and types of leadership they engage in are multi-dimensional. Teacher leadership comes in many shapes and definitions. In this sense, both opportunities and challenges exist in teacher leadership. While national competencies continue to define dispositional and knowledge base for teacher leaders, there is still work to be done to define and add to the body of scholarship on this topic. Teacher leadership opportunities provide development for teachers as a key retention strategy; however, role ambiguity presents challenges in how to empower teachers for formal and informal roles of leadership while maintaining the teacher identity. Empowering Formal and Informal Leadership While Maintaining Teacher Identity provides a comprehensive look at the opportunities and challenges of teacher leadership, drawing on research and practice that add to the body of knowledge for teacher leadership, which is a niche in education that differs from educational administration. Highlighted topics within this book include models for teacher leadership, teacher education, types of leadership roles, the development and retention of teacher leaders, and leadership across different types of school districts. This book is ideally designed for inservice and preservice teachers, administrators, teacher educators, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in teacher leadership roles and the way in which teacher identity is maintained in relation to these other leadership positions.
