Relatively Good News Amid Covid-19

Jesse Moon Longhurst,Michael Thier

doi:10.35608/ruraled.v42i2.1220

Abstract

This study examined publicly available data from The Institution of Education Sciences (IES) survey of school leaders concerning modes of instructions offered and subgroups prioritized during the Covid-19 pandemic. We asked: Do national data regarding instructional modes (i.e., remote, hybrid, and in-person) during the Covid-19 pandemic reveal different approaches of U.S. elementary and secondary schools in rural areas versus peer institutions in cities, suburbs, and towns? Our analysis showed that schools in rural areas are more readily and equitably offering in-person instruction than schools in suburbs and cities, particularly in regard to students of color. Additionally, we found that rural school leaders report prioritizing English learners, students with identified disabilities, students experiencing homelessness and students without home internet access at higher rates that their peers in urban and suburban schools.

Highlights

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted schooling around the world and education leaders have been forced to respond nimbly and creatively to complex and pressing public health imperatives (Das et al, 2020)
We examined Institution of Education Sciences (IES)’s first two months of survey data to determine (a) if any differences existed in how rural schools were delivering instruction as compared to schools in other geographic locales and (b) how they were serving subgroups within those rural schools
The range among states is very large—from 3.7% in Rhode Island to 85.6% in New Mexico [...] in four states, the majority of students in rural districts identify as non-White: New Mexico (85.6%), Alaska (63.9%), Arizona (58.5%), and California (57.5%). (p. 17) The IES data we examined show rural schools to have served students of color with in-person instruction more proportionally than schools in cities and suburbs

Summary

Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted schooling around the world and education leaders have been forced to respond nimbly and creatively to complex and pressing public health imperatives (Das et al, 2020). We examined IES’s first two months of survey data to determine (a) if any differences existed in how rural schools were delivering instruction as compared to schools in other geographic locales and (b) how they were serving subgroups within those rural schools. We found schools in rural communities and small towns tending to provide more in-person instruction and doing so more equitably than schools in cities and suburbs.

Results

Conclusion