Essay: Rural Education Reform

Education | April 14, 2016

By Michael Q. McShane | Read Time 1 minute minutes

Rural school districts share many of the challenges that face urban and suburban districts: recruiting good teachers, offering a broad range of courses for students, and securing adequate funding. However, rural districts also operate under the unique constraints that come with relatively small student populations spread over large geographic areas. This essay examines the difficulties rural districts must contend with and also looks at innovative responses—some of them already in use in other states—that can help rural schools provide a high-quality education to their students. Click the link below to read the entire essay.

About the Author

Michael Q. McShane

Michael Q. McShane is Senior Fellow of Education Policy at the Show-Me Institute. A former high school teacher, he earned a Ph.D. in education policy from the University of Arkansas, an M.Ed. from the University of Notre Dame, and a B.A. in English from St. Louis University. McShanes analyses and commentary have been published widely in the media, including in the Huffington Post, National Affairs, USA Today, and The Washington Post. He has also been featured in education-specific outlets such as Teachers College Commentary, Education Week, Phi Delta Kappan, and Education Next. In addition to authoring numerous white papers, McShane has had academic work published in Education Finance and Policy and the Journal of School Choice. He is the editor of New and Better Schools (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), the author of Education and Opportunity (AEI Press, 2014), and coeditor of Teacher Quality 2.0 (Harvard Education Press, 2014) and Common Core Meets Education Reform (Teachers College Press, 2013).

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