Nine rural schools within a 35-school SIG school improvement process study¶

Element · All elements
Evidence · 8 claims (8 for) · 2 studies (2 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 2 report an effect size · 8 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The studied element is a set of nine rural schools that were part of a study for the U.S. Department of Education on the school improvement process, drawn from "a purposive sample of 35 schools receiving federal funds through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program." The article examines how respondents in these rural schools perceived that the rural setting influenced the schools' challenges and improvement actions. It serves as the evidence base for the article's findings on rural context and staffing.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Schools must be receiving federal funds through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program

Constraints¶

• Findings come from a purposive sample of 35 schools, of which the nine rural schools are the focus

Target Learners¶

• Students in low-performing rural schools

Target Learning Goals¶

• School improvement in low-performing rural schools, including staffing and instructional conditions

Claims¶

• Rural school settings' distance from urban areas and long commutes can exacerbate the challenges struggling rural schools face [+W]
• Recruitment and retention of teaching staff is an activity integral to school improvement efforts under SIG, and the article presents findings on it in rural schools [+W]
• Rural SIG schools reported additional challenges from remote locations and large catchment areas beyond those reported by nonrural SIG schools [+W]
• Administrators in eight of nine rural SIG schools reported rural-setting factors, chiefly long teacher commutes (six schools) or isolated communities (four), that hampered teacher recruitment or retention [+W]
• Rural SIG schools perceived transportation access and home-school distance as location-related barriers to parent involvement [+W]
• Respondents in two of nine rural SIG schools saw transportation costs and catchment size as making it best to increase learning time within the existing schedule rather than extend the school day [+W]
• Rural SIG schools were more likely than nonrural SIG schools to adopt the transformation model (95 versus 74 percent) [+W]
• Small rural teaching staffs forced PLCs across grades and subjects, and teachers in four schools felt isolated from same-subject colleagues [+W]

Related Elements¶

Examples¶

• SIG-funded parent liaisons paired with structured parent contact practices to increase family engagement

Key Sources¶

• Linda Rosenberg, Megan Davis Christianson, Megan Hague Angus. (2015). Improvement Efforts in Rural Schools: Experience of Nine Schools Receiving School Improvement Grants. Peabody Journal of Education, vol. 90, issue 2. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hpje20/90/2