BUFFALO, Mo. — Suzanne Feldman realizes she’s an anomaly: a soon-to-be college graduate who wants to return to the languid rhythms of rural life rather than flee. The aspiring high school math teacher is a member of the inaugural class of the Ozarks Teacher Corps, a group of southwest Missouri teachers in training who receive $4,000 annual scholarships in exchange for a three-year commitment to work in rural school districts after graduation. Having grown up in a town with fewer than 3,000 residents, a place where your homeroom instructor is just as likely to be sitting in the same church pew come Sunday, the 21-year-old newlywed knows that small-town teachers are not just educators but also neighbors and role models. “The community’s expectations are higher,” said Feldman, a senior at Drury University in Springfield, Mo. “When it’s a small community, everybody knows everybody — and expects a whole lot more.” Faced with chronic teacher shortages and unable to compete with the higher salaries and greater social opportunities found in big cities and suburban districts, a growing number of rural school systems are turning to familiar faces to teach their students. They know teachers with rural backgrounds are more likely to stick around and not leave after a year or two. They can be pretty sure that the absence of late-night clubs or art-house movie theaters won’t drive away otherwise idealistic young teachers. And they can count on those teachers being more in touch with their students’ home lives, whether their parents are Indiana farmers, Mississippi factory workers or Northern California grape pickers. “Small, rural communities are grounded in tradition and have deep roots,” said Catherine Kearney, president of the California Teacher Corps. “Someone who understands those traditions makes a huge difference.” The California effort consists of more than 70 programs aimed at luring professionals with non-teaching experience into the classroom. Last year, the teacher corps shifted its emphasis to rural school districts in a state with 300,000 students from rural areas. Half of those students are minorities, and 25% come from homes where English is not the native language. That makes for a different approach to teacher recruitment than programs based in other parts of the country. Esther Soto, 43, started out two decades ago as parent volunteer in the rural Mendocino County town of Boonville, located 120 miles north of San Francisco. She spent 18 years as a teacher’s assistant before returning to school for her teacher’s certification. Soto now teaches kindergarten in the Anderson Valley school district. When the high school found itself in need of a Spanish teacher, the native of Mexico took on that role as well. “I know the families,” she said. “I’m more likely to make a connection. I’ve seen some of these kids since kindergarten. They can’t escape from me.” Roughly 10.5 million students in this country — nearly 20% of the school-age population — attend rural schools, according to the Rural School and Community Trust, a nonprofit advocacy group based in northern Virginia. The group’s research shows that the 900 poorest rural school districts have higher poverty rates than school systems in Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia and other urban areas typically considered as the toughest places to teach, and learn. It’s those sort of eye-opening comparisons that rural education advocates say demands a new, national approach to closing the gap. The Rural School and Community Trust found that 12 states graduate fewer than 60% of students from their poorest rural districts: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota and South Dakota. “As a society, we focus our attention on inner-city kids, and blighted urban school districts,” said Randy Shaver, schools superintendent in Tupelo, Miss. Shaver was one of nine rural superintendents from across the country who met with Education Secretary Arne Duncan late last year to discuss reform proposals. His idea: a national rural teaching corps that would build upon the regional efforts found in places such as Missouri, California and Indiana, where Purdue and two other universities are training math and science professionals to return to the classroom. “We need something that’s far more intensive and far broader,” Shaver said. Many of the newer efforts to foster homegrown teaching talent aim to train not just capable educators but to also inspire those rural teachers to become community leaders. Gary Funk, president of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, which parlayed a $1.7 million private donation to create the Missouri program, hopes that Feldman and her contemporaries develop into “rural activists.” To that end, Ozarks Teacher Corps participants immerse themselves in the study of rural economies, local history and other matters beyond their chosen specialties. They meet regularly for feedback and support and are assigned mentors to guide them through the early years in the classroom, when challenges and frustration can be at their highest. “In traditional teacher training, we don’t focus so much on the context of community,” Funk said. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Civil rights leaders are criticizing Obama administration education reforms aimed at turning around low performing schools and closing the achievement gap for minority students. Eight civil rights organizations, including the NAACP , contend in a document released Monday the Education Department is promoting ineffective approaches for failing schools. They also claim the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” grant competition — a program with a goal of spurring innovative reform in states — leaves out many minority students. “We want to be supportive, but more important than supporting an administration is supporting our children across the country and ensuring that they have an opportunity to learn,” said John Jackson, president of the Schott Foundation for Education, one of the groups that developed the document. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and a White House adviser met with the groups Monday, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson , the Rev. Al Sharpton and the presidents of the National Urban League and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The groups distributed the document to members of Congress last week. Duncan has called education “the civil rights issue of our generation,” and many of the reforms the administration has pushed aim to improve educational opportunities for the most vulnerable students. “The administration is dedicated to equity in education and we’ve been working very closely with the civil rights community to develop the most effective policies to close the achievement gap, turn around low performing schools and put a good teacher in every classroom,” Education Department spokesman Justin Hamilton said. The Obama administration’s education reforms have drawn criticism from education advocates, including prominent teachers’ unions like the American Federation of Teachers , which gives money to many of the groups that signed the civil rights document. AFT President Randi Weingarten said she supports the proposal but that her organization had nothing to do with writing it. “I think the civil rights movement has done something really important here,” Weingarten said. “They are setting a very different prescription for how to ensure quality education for all.” The proposal calls into question many of the Education Department’s initiatives, including the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition and the $3.5 billion to turn around low performing schools. Citing federal data, the groups say just 3% of the nation’s black students and less than 1% of Latino students are impacted by the first round of the Race to the Top competition, which awarded about $600 million for Tennessee and Delaware to undertake innovative reforms. Finalists for the second round of grants are to be announced Tuesday. “No state should have to compete to protect the civil rights of their children in their states,” John Jackson said. The document also proposes creating standards for equal access to early childhood education, effective teachers, college preparatory curriculum and quality resources. And it takes a critical viewpoint of the administration’s approach to turn around failing schools, including closing them or replacing much of the staff. “Low-performing schools will not improve unless we also change the resources, conditions and approaches to teaching and learning within the schools or their replacements,” the assessment states. But the plan has one glaring omission: no Hispanic groups signed on to support it. Raul Gonzalez from the National Council of La Raza said his organization decided not to endorse the document because there were concerns with how the groups see charter schools. The civil rights groups want charter schools to focus more on attracting diversity than the needs of the children in their community, Gonzalez said. “To suggest that a charter school started by community members who want to help kids in their community cannot serve 100% Hispanic kids in a community that’s 100% Hispanic — that they should be penalized for that or they shouldn’t be allowed to open up — that doesn’t make sense,” he said. But he applauded the civil rights groups for pushing for more financial support for programs that would help increase parental involvement in schools. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Civil rights leaders are criticizing Obama administration education reforms aimed at turning around low performing schools and closing the achievement gap for minority students. Eight civil rights organizations, including the NAACP , contend in a document released Monday the Education Department is promoting ineffective approaches for failing schools. They also claim the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” grant competition — a program with a goal of spurring innovative reform in states — leaves out many minority students. “We want to be supportive, but more important than supporting an administration is supporting our children across the country and ensuring that they have an opportunity to learn,” said John Jackson, president of the Schott Foundation for Education, one of the groups that developed the document. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and a White House adviser met with the groups Monday, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson , the Rev. Al Sharpton and the presidents of the National Urban League and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The groups distributed the document to members of Congress last week. Duncan has called education “the civil rights issue of our generation,” and many of the reforms the administration has pushed aim to improve educational opportunities for the most vulnerable students. “The administration is dedicated to equity in education and we’ve been working very closely with the civil rights community to develop the most effective policies to close the achievement gap, turn around low performing schools and put a good teacher in every classroom,” Education Department spokesman Justin Hamilton said. The Obama administration’s education reforms have drawn criticism from education advocates, including prominent teachers’ unions like the American Federation of Teachers , which gives money to many of the groups that signed the civil rights document. AFT President Randi Weingarten said she supports the proposal but that her organization had nothing to do with writing it. “I think the civil rights movement has done something really important here,” Weingarten said. “They are setting a very different prescription for how to ensure quality education for all.” The proposal calls into question many of the Education Department’s initiatives, including the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition and the $3.5 billion to turn around low performing schools. Citing federal data, the groups say just 3% of the nation’s black students and less than 1% of Latino students are impacted by the first round of the Race to the Top competition, which awarded about $600 million for Tennessee and Delaware to undertake innovative reforms. Finalists for the second round of grants are to be announced Tuesday. “No state should have to compete to protect the civil rights of their children in their states,” John Jackson said. The document also proposes creating standards for equal access to early childhood education, effective teachers, college preparatory curriculum and quality resources. And it takes a critical viewpoint of the administration’s approach to turn around failing schools, including closing them or replacing much of the staff. “Low-performing schools will not improve unless we also change the resources, conditions and approaches to teaching and learning within the schools or their replacements,” the assessment states. But the plan has one glaring omission: no Hispanic groups signed on to support it. Raul Gonzalez from the National Council of La Raza said his organization decided not to endorse the document because there were concerns with how the groups see charter schools. The civil rights groups want charter schools to focus more on attracting diversity than the needs of the children in their community, Gonzalez said. “To suggest that a charter school started by community members who want to help kids in their community cannot serve 100% Hispanic kids in a community that’s 100% Hispanic — that they should be penalized for that or they shouldn’t be allowed to open up — that doesn’t make sense,” he said. But he applauded the civil rights groups for pushing for more financial support for programs that would help increase parental involvement in schools. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.