HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) \u2014 More than half of Pennsylvania\u2019s school districts are rural, but their needs are often overlooked in larger debates over issues such as school funding and improving student achievement, a rural education advocate told the House Education Committee on Tuesday.
\nAlthough both rural and large urban districts face similar problems, major news organizations leave the struggles of rural schools less publicized, said Arnold Hillman, a former school superintendent who works for a consulting and advocacy firm specializing in rural issues.
\n\u201cSo if we don\u2019t see them, we sometimes think they don\u2019t exist,\u201d Hillman said.
\nThe Pennsylvania School Boards Association considers 260 of the state\u2019s 501 school districts \u2014 more than half \u2014 to be rural, Hillman said.
\nSome are spread out over great distances and face substantial transportation costs as a result, he said. The Keystone Central School District, for example, encompasses all of Clinton County in the north-central part of the state \u2014 983 square miles.
\nRetaining qualified teachers is another challenge, Hillman said, noting that a teacher with 18 years experience and a bachelor\u2019s degree earns nearly $78,000 a year in the Council Rock School District in Bucks County, while a similarly qualified teacher in the Forbes Road School in Fulton County earns about $39,000 a year.
\n\u201cTeachers are leaving in the middle of the state to go other places where (districts) pay more,\u201d he said.
\nRural-school teachers are confronted with a dizzying array of subjects to cover, between state and federal mandates outlining the government\u2019s expectations, and they are hard-pressed to focus much of their time on any specific area, he said.
\nRep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Luzerne, expressed some frustration that Hillman did not offer any guidance to the Legislature on how to better assist the schools.
\n\u201cBased on what you\u2019ve said, it almost sounds to me like you\u2019re telling state government, \u2019Just give us the money, and let us do our thing,\u201d\u2019 she said.
\nHillman responded that lawmakers and policymakers should simply ease up on regulations and \u201clet the reins loose a little bit.\u201d
\n\u201cWe\u2019re just saying, no more new stuff, because it becomes impossible to get rid of the old stuff,\u201d he said.
\nThe committee\u2019s chairman, Rep. Jess Stairs, said the discussion would help set the stage for lawmakers to focus more attention on rural school districts.
\nStairs, R-Westmoreland, has introduced a resolution that would create a special commission to study rural education and report its findings to the Legislature by June 30, 2004. The commission would examine issues such as academic performance, spending, and access to postsecondary education programs.
\n\u201cWe want to look at rural education so it\u2019s not overlooked,\u201d Stairs said.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014
\nOn the Net:
\nPennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools: http:\/\/www.parss.org\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) \u2014 More than half of Pennsylvania\u2019s school districts are rural, but their needs are often overlooked in larger debates over issues such as school funding and improving student achievement, a rural education advocate told the House Education Committee on Tuesday. Although both rural and large urban districts face similar problems, major news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}