Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. students attend rural schools. That’s about 9.3 million kids. Yet, during policy discussions, rural schools’ unique challenges are often eclipsed by those of their urban and suburban counterparts. This report is a case study of an innovative, replicable public education experiment at three rural Texas high schools called the Rural Schools Innovation Zone (RSIZ). This first-of-its-kind experiment is a collaboration between three rural school districts focusing on college attainment and career pathways for the 21st-century job market.
It is proving so successful that the Texas state legislature passed a bill designating funding to incentivize more school districts to adopt the model. The bill became law on June 2, 2023. Texas’ significant step forward for equity and rural workforce development deserves national attention.
By raw numbers, Texas is responsible for educating more rural students than any other state, given its vast metropolises, but it isn’t even among the top 10 states with the largest percentage of rural students. The 2018-2019 Report of the Rural Schools and Community Trust found that rural public schools account for more than half of schools in 12 states. In Vermont (55%) and Maine (54%), more than half of students live in non-metro areas. In 18 other states, rural students account for 30% to 49% of the student population. Those states are spread through every geographic region in the country. More American students attend rural schools than the largest 85 school districts combined.
And, rural schools are becoming more diverse, gaining more English as a second language (ESL) and special education students in recent years, while seeing White rural students decrease by 3%. Today, nearly one-in-three rural students are non-White.
While rural demographics are changing, rural poverty is stubborn. According to the most recent estimates from the 2019 American Community Survey, the non-metro poverty rate was 15.4% in 2019, compared with 11.9% in metro areas. Poverty is more severe for rural children and minorities. Almost 23% of rural children under the age of 18 live in poverty, compared to just under 17.7% of non-rural children. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 30.7% of rural Black Americans, 29.6% of American Indian/Alaska natives, and 21.7% of rural Hispanic Americans live in poverty, compared to 12.7% of White rural citizens. The Rural School and Community Trust report found that nationwide, the communities surrounding schools in rural districts on average had a household income of just 2.68 times the poverty line.
Those statistics point to the urgency of the need to improve school systems that serve rural students. Providing regionally relevant career and technical education (CTE) is especially important, as 42% of rural Americans say finding a job is a major concern, while only 39% of them are willing to move from home to find work. Innovating to provide rural high school students with equitable access to college and/or career readiness opportunities for regionally available jobs is a national imperative that requires us to think in new ways and to try new things. Traditional, one-size-fits-all school districts must yield to more flexible programming.
This is why it is worthy to discuss the successful experiment just codified into state law in Texas. The goal of this case study is to explain and publicize the initiative, called the Rural Schools Innovation Zone (RSIZ), in the hopes that other states with significant rural populations may consider it as a tool for combating challenges, including institutional stagnation, isolation, underfunding, and generational poverty, that prevent rural school students from graduating college or career ready.
The report is organized into the following sections:
• Presenting the Rural Schools Innovations Zone (RSIZ) as a 21st-century model for expanding career pathways and preparation, including early credit and industry certification components;
• Quantifying the challenges rural schools experience;
• Understanding the RSIZ career pathways and early college “academies”;
• Designing and implementing the RSIZ collaboration between three independent school districts:
– Structuring the governance and leadership framework;
– Aligning career pathways to the local economy;
– Student recruitment;
– Student outcomes
• Operating the RSIZ:
– Finance and funding streams;
– Human capital;
– Scheduling and transportation;
– Data sharing;
• Codifying the RSIZ collaborative and conclusion.
