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Who We Are

The National Center for Rural Education Research Networks is a research and development center with a mission to expand the use of evidence-based decision-making in rural education. To this end, we seek to contribute to the body of rigorous research and proven solutions in rural education.

 

The Rural Center’s network, launched in 2019 with funding from the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), includes 49 rural districts from across New York and Ohio as well as their state education agencies, educational service agencies, and regional data centers. In the second phase of our work, we will expand the network to include three additional states in which we will implement successful interventions found to be effective during phase one.

 

 

A unique model for how research can be conducted in rural education settings

There has been incredible growth in the amount of rigorous research to determine effective interventions in education over the last few decades; however, these efforts have focused almost exclusively on urban and suburban settings. 

Rural communities have unique challenges and assets, which is why our team and our district partners are focused on designing interventions and solutions tailored to their needs.

 
  • Sample Size: We help rural districts develop common solutions to their shared challenges. By engaging a critical mass of rural districts to test the same solutions, we gain the sample sizes needed to reliably estimate the impact of these solutions.
  • Costs and challenges of obtaining data: We work with regional data centers to reduce costs of obtaining data from multiple districts.
  • Lack of rural-specific interventions: We collaborate with rural districts to engage them in design of interventions to ensure that they meet needs of their context.