Best Practices for Identifying and Supporting High-Achieving Rural Students
This guest post was written by Jennifer Glynn, Ph.D. who is the Director of Research at the Jack Kent Cooke
Foundation.
Almost one in
five school children—some 9 million nationwide—live in rural areas. Many of
these students have far fewer resources than their suburban counterparts and
receive far less national attention than urban ones. At the Jack Kent Cooke
Foundation, we aim to change that, both by calling attention to the need to
increase opportunities for rural students and by supporting programs that are
leading the way in doing so.
As
highlighted in our new report, “Small Town, Big Talent,” rural students are both high achieving and
underserved. They graduate from high school at rates above the national
average, but are less likely than their peers elsewhere in the country to
enroll in college immediately after graduation. This disconnect between K-12
and postsecondary achievement can disadvantage communities that often are struggling
to attract and retain talent.
In our new
report, we highlight promising practices and programs that can serve as models
for expanding opportunities for academically talented students in rural
America. To reach their full potential, academically talented students require
advanced support, opportunities, and resources that far too many schools lack.
Rural schools, with smaller enrollments and fewer resources, face additional
challenges providing for their brightest students.
Since 2012, the
Cooke Foundation has supported educational enrichment in rural areas by
awarding over $3.3 million in grants to outstanding organizations that support
rural students in Alaska, Iowa, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina,
Tennessee, and Virginia. In 2017, the Foundation formalized our strategy for
rural program support by establishing the Rural Talent Initiative grant
program. This report draws on the deep experience of six grantees and findings
from the research community to offer 14 recommendations of best practices for
identifying promising rural students, providing them with academic services,
and meeting the social and emotional needs of promising rural students.
James Madison
University’s Valley Scholars Program, for example, has learned that it’s critical to not only create local
enrichment opportunities but to also widen students’ vision of what’s possible.
They expose scholars to a wide range of college and career options and help
them build social capital that doesn’t accrue naturally in sparsely populated
areas. “Our goal is to support Valley Scholars in becoming leaders in their
communities.” Shaun Mooney, director of the Valley Scholars Program, told us.
“We are intentional about creating opportunities for learning inside and
outside of their communities to expose them to new ideas, experiences, and
people.”
All the
organizations interviewed for the report also stressed the importance of
recognizing that no two communities are the same. “When you know one rural
area, you [only] know one rural area,” said Tamra Stambaugh, director of Vanderbilt
University’s Programs for Talented Youth. Some rural communities are
adjacent to outer suburbs, while others are hundreds of miles away from the
nearest town or city. Some have differentiated economies, while others are
dependent upon a single industry, such as farming, fishing, mining, logging, or
tourism. All of those factors impact the resources and opportunities available
to students.
Just as there
is no one-size-fits-all solution for addressing need in urban schools,
organizations must take a varied approach to increasing services for rural
school children. We hope this report will inspire national organizations,
educators, and federal and state policymakers—and provide much-needed guidance
on how to deepen their work in rural communities. Ultimately, the entire nation
will benefit from developing its young rural talent, and it is our intent for
this report to serve as a useful blueprint to do so.