Linking Education and Economic Development: A Very Local, Very Rural Vignette PDF - McDowell County in West Virginia was once considered a wasteland. Now, it may become a beacon for other rural communities in dire straits thanks in part to Reconnecting McDowell. This paper, the first in a series examining rural education issues, examines the comprehensive, long-term effort to make educational improvement in McDowell County the route to a brighter economic future. Partners from business, foundations, government, nonprofit agencies and labor have committed to seek solutions to McDowell’s complex problems—poverty, underperforming schools, drug and alcohol abuse, housing shortages, limited medical services, and inadequate access to technology and transportation. (Carol Kreck, ECS, May 2013)...

From the ECS State Policy Database: Rural - This policy database—updated weekly—is made possible by your state's fiscal support of the Education Commission of the States....

Why Rural Matters 2011-12: The Condition of Rural Education in the 50 States - Why Rural Matters 2011-12 is the sixth in a series of biennial reports analyzing the contexts and conditions of rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the need for policymakers to address rural education issues in their respective states....

Table 4: Number of Regular Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts, By Student Membership Size and State or Jurisdiction: School Year 2009-10 - Number of small districts, by state. Table from the Numbers and Types of Public Elementary and Secondary Local Education Agencies From the Common Core of Data: School Year 2009-10 (National Center for Education Statistics, May 2011)...

Table 3. Number of Regular Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts, by Grade Span and State of Jurisdiction: School Year 2009-10 - Table displays districts by grade span. Data from the Numbers and Types of Public Elementary and Secondary Local Education Agencies From the Common Core of Data: School Year 2009-10. (National Center for Education Statistics, May 2011)...

Table 5. Percentage Distribution of Students in Membership in Regular Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts with Membership, by Student Membership Size and State - Table by percentage of student membership in small districts. Data included in the Numbers and Types of Public Elementary and Secondary Local Education Agencies from the Common Core of Data: School Year 2009-10. (National Center for Education Statistics, May 2011)...

The Rural Solution: How Community Schools Can Reinvigorate Rural Education - This report addresses the potential of the community school movement to concentrate supports and resources in low-wealth rural schools and build the kind of community-school partnerships that help children, their families, the school and the community succeed and thrive. The paper also includes profiles of three communities that have applied the concept in their schools. (Center for American Progress, September 2010)...