This brochure offers descriptions of three Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL) programs designed to improve elementary and secondary education in the midwestern United States. "Project ACCESS" helps students explore career options. "Decisions About Technology" helps increase learning opportunities through the…

Place-based, or "contextualized," mathematics instruction gives learners the opportunity to see how mathematics is relevant to their lives. Such opportunities are crucial to the success of students in rural settings and may be crucial to the survival of rural communities. For the last half century, schools have educated rural children to believe…

Northwest Iowa Power Co-op, Northwest Iowa Telephone, and MCI formed Pioneer Holdings to bring the latest telecommunications services to residents, schools, and businesses in rural Iowa. A half-dozen towns and co-ops have joined Pioneer, which gives customers access to all telecom services offered by MCI, as well as technical, regulatory, and…

Through the Appalachian Community Learning Project, community teams tackle a range of economic and community-development problems. After participating in leadership forums, teams set modest six-month goals and later report on results and lessons learned. By "chipping away" at local problems, teams have fostered individuals'…

Describes the development of entrepreneurship programs for youth in rural Nebraska and South Dakota. Discusses the cooperative efforts of four institutions and organizations to promote entrepreneurship education, school-based activities tied to entrepreneurship and community development, and the importance of peer networks and community awareness…

At Annenberg Rural Challenge sites, people in small U.S. communities have gathered their resources and organized their schools so as to reclaim rural places and traditions facing economic or political eradication. Educational innovations and practices at various sites are described, and their application to urban settings is discussed. Includes 10…

Rural school and community renewal efforts may depend upon a reconceptualization of our democratic institutions and practices. During at least the last 130 years, we have come to judge our democratic institutions on the basis of whether they deliver the goods rather than develop our people. In the name of progress, efficiency, higher standards of…

Updated vocational agricultural programs and school-based enterprises can help rebuild rural economies. Advantages of vocational agricultural programs include leadership training, a problem-solving approach to the teaching of sciences and mathematics, and strong community support. School-based enterprises combine educational objectives and local…

The Annenberg Rural Challenge is a national effort to revitalize rural communities and schools and their long-standing values of community, democracy, and care for the natural environment. This collection of five essays presents a number of themes that are central to the Rural Challenge's philosophy. "Bringing It All Back Home: Reclaiming the…

Building a rural community-school development project where students engage in community-based learning experiences requires changes in the way schools prepare rural youth for the future. This publication examines the kinds of changes a school system must make before planning and implementing community-based learning strategies. Changes in…

This document lists 248 federal funding programs available to rural areas. The programs were selected from the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, 1995, which is available online from the Federal Assistance Programs Retrieval System (FAPRS). Entries are listed under the following federal departments or agencies: Department of Agriculture,…

This document contains a wide assortment of papers and promotional materials concerning the Big Sky Telegraph, a Montana-based telecommunications network serving rural economic development organizations. Funded by the US West Foundation and Western Montana College, Big Sky was created to stimulate grassroots innovation in rural education,…

Examines the condition of human resources in the rural South, particularly educational attainment, outmigration, illiteracy, and quality of rural schools. Discusses strategies for the development of human resources in the 1990s involving local, state, and federal governments and the role of rural sociologists. Contains 40 references. (Author/SV)

Addressing the "death of hope" in rural Nebraska during the 1980s farm crisis, the "School at the Center" project engages rural schools and communities in active learning projects: housing or historic-building repair, environmental repair, microenterprise development, exploration of local cultural heritage, and technology…

This paper discusses the REAL (Rural Entrepreneurship through Action Learning) model as a necessary component of rural school-to-work (STW) programs. In rural areas where opportunities for traditional STW approaches (such as apprenticeships) are limited, entrepreneurial education teaches students to be job creators, not just job applicants. This…