According to an article in the Flathead Beacon, Montana education officials are raising concerns over how a proposed change by the U.S. Department of Education could impact local schools. The Department is proposing to change the way it determines qualification for rural low-income grants, basing...
Last week, the U.S. Department of Education published the Section 5005 Final Report on Rural Education—aka the “Rural Report” that is mandated by Section 5005 of ESSA. The report “outlines actions the Department will take to meaningfully increase the involvement of rural schools and school...
Tom Dinki writes for the Olean Times Herald about the challenges facing rural schools in New York State, and how the state’s ESSA plan puts aside “$1.6 billion in federal aid to help rural districts increase teacher training and courses in STEM (science, technology, engineering...
According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, state Education Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowski recently announced his department has initiated the new Direct Student Services Initiative “to make $7.7 million in funding available for at-risk students, a measure that fits into the state’s adoption of the federal...
Bellwether Education Partners released a new report on the use of personalized learning in rural schools. The paper called for states to “explore alternative accountability mechanisms” through ESSA’s flexibility in the Innovative Assessment pilot program. However, Bellwether expressed concerns that students and schools are largely...
Oregon education leaders held the third of eleven education forums last week, where they discussed how the new accountability system must pay special attention rural students, who are often forgotten in Oregon’s education process. Read more here.
Last week, school administrators attended a meeting with two of Sen. Al Franken’s advisers to discuss ESSA. According to news coverage, many of the administrators were skeptical of the reform. The ESSA failed to address teacher shortages, financial needs and the lack of school facilities...
