A call for advocacy in Arkansas rural education

It’s a crisp October night and the cheers of rural high school football games echo through the woods and hollers of Arkansas. The familiar smells of popcorn and hot dogs from the concession stand waft through the air, as little children play games with crumpled paper cups or hide-and-seek under the bleachers.

For many, these are not difficult sensory images to conjure. They epitomize the dedicated and passionate support of rural communities throughout Arkansas for their community schools.

Yet, many of these same schools are facing “fourth and long” away from the field.

The report “Why Rural Matters 2011-2012: The Condition of Rural Education in the 50 States,” a biennial research publication sponsored by the Rural School and Community Trust, sheds some important light on the challenges facing education in the state of Arkansas. The report labels our state as “Very Important,” “Urgent” or “Crucial” in all its gauges of need in rural education.

According to the report, more than one-third of Arkansas K-12 public school students attend rural schools, and over half of the state’s schools serve students from rural communities. These statistics come with real-life challenges. Alarmingly, poverty rates for rural students have risen over the past decade, resulting in Arkansas having the fourth-highest rural student poverty rate in the nation.

In addition to becoming poorer, rural Arkansas students display a high student mobility rate. According to the researchers, student mobility marks “percentage of households with school-age children who changed residences within the previous 12 months” and “is a measure of economic stress that disrupts consistency in teaching and learning and has been associated with lower academic achievement in the research literature.”

These challenges should be addressed with the needs of an increasingly diverse demographic in mind, including a 278 percent increase in Hispanic students since 1999.

In terms of educational outcomes, Arkansas’ needs are determined in the report to be “Urgent.” For instance, our rural eighth-grade test scores on national assessments were among the nation’s lowest in mathematics and reading.

Further concern lies in the report’s findings that Arkansas rural instructional expenditures and teacher pay in rural districts are among the lowest in the nation—only four states spend less on rural instruction. It would appear from this data that Arkansas is providing less financial support to the schools and teachers that face some of the state’s most challenging educational issues.

However, all is not lost. No “hail Mary” is required. In fact, there is a lot to preserve in rural education, and there are important resources that policymakers, educators, students, and parents can draw upon. Each of our rural communities and hamlets, from the Delta to the Ozarks, offer the close-knit support groups and dedicated citizens needed to help bring awareness to and solutions for growing needs. The same impressive support for athletics, church programs, or local businesses can be harnessed for school growth.

Over the summer I had the pleasure of working with and learning from a small group of dedicated rural teachers in a Rural Advocacy Institute of the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project in Eureka Springs. The knowledge these educators bring to discussions on rural education and literacy are valuable to all of us concerned with rural education. Professional development institutes such as this are a key resource in advocating for rural students and communities.

What these teachers have taught me and can teach policymakers and their own communities is that rural education is a complex and potentially productive way of educating the future of Arkansas.

These teachers are able to passionately advocate for their rural schools and bring about important issues that go beyond many statistical reports. One common desire that these teachers express is for their students to have “pride in where they live and learn.” Furthermore, these teachers express concerns about gender inequality in administrative leadership and the difficulties rural communities face in relation to outside influences, including assessment standards.

Let’s listen to our rural educational professionals and communities, gain as much anecdotal and research information we can, communicate with our administrators and policymakers, and advocate for the increasingly complicated issues and exciting opportunities implicit in rural education.

In this way, we can best support rural school students on and off the field.