Rural Collaboratives
Rural Collaboratives
The Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) at Harvard University and Empower Schools are pleased to announce that they have launched a partnership to support research on the effectiveness of Rural Collaboratives in improving postsecondary success for underserved rural students. This work will examine the impact of formalized rural partnerships as a means to improve and expand college and career training for students, and, ultimately, improve their long-term outcomes.
Project Overview
The overarching project, led by Empower Schools, will involve a multi-state study, including an impact analysis of the Rural Schools Innovation Zone (RSIZ), an evaluation of Texas’ HB2209 policy, and a review of existing collaboratives and enabling policies in Colorado and Indiana. Research findings will be shared through a report on the impact of the RSIZ; state-specific policy briefs for Texas, Colorado, and Indiana; and a model rural policy framework for states that want to encourage formal regional collaboration. This project complements Empower Schools' work on the potential of innovative local partnerships to strengthen educational opportunities and economic development in rural areas. It also builds on NCRERN's deep expertise conducting casual evaluations of educational programs in rural areas.
CEPR's Role: Rural Schools Innovation Zone Evaluation
As a part of this project, CEPR will create a logic model and conduct an impact evaluation of the Rural Schools Innovation Zone (RSIZ). The RSIZ is a first-of-its-kind partnership made up of five school districts and five institutions of higher education in South Texas. The RSIZ is a nonprofit organization designed as a sustainable collaborative to provide rural students high-quality opportunities for postsecondary success in the form of five academies that prepare students for college and careers in healthcare, STEM, technical fields, and education. CEPR will examine the impact of enrolling in an RSIZ Academy on students’ likelihood of graduating high school, enrolling and persisting in college, securing employment, and their average wages.
This partnership offers a unique opportunity to conduct the first research on the effectiveness of Rural Collaboratives, an innovative structure that gives rural districts the economies of scales needed to offer a wider range of opportunities to their students. We are excited to apply the expertise in conducting rural impact evaluations that we developed through NCRERN to such a potentially powerful model.
What is a Rural Collaborative?
Rural Collaboratives are formalized partnerships between school districts, higher education, and industry that provide new ways for all rural students in a region to access high quality programming and earn college credit and industry credentials before graduating from high school. By banding together, school districts can offer multiple high-quality pathways that no single rural district could offer alone and share not only resources and costs, but also accountability for student and community success.
Rural Collaboratives have not yet been rigorously studied, both because of their relative infancy and the challenges of conducting impact evaluations in rural settings. This initiative will provide research-based policy recommendations for states interested in pursuing similar approaches.
This partnership provides a tremendous opportunity to deepen our understanding of Rural Collaboratives and their potential to transform educational pathways for rural students. We are excited to collaborate to drive meaningful policy change.
A Model of Rural Collaboration: Strengthening College and Career Pathways through the Rural Schools Innovation Zone
This report describes the Rural Schools Innovation Zone (RSIZ), a formalized, collaborative partnership between K-12 school districts, postsecondary institutions, and industry partners in South Texas that provides high schoolers with multiple high-quality pathways aligned with local labor market needs.
The report captures the specific context and characteristics of the RSIZ, describing the inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact of the fully developed, mature RSIZ both to highlight the work currently taking place as well as to provide an example of what a Rural Collaborative can be for district leaders and state policymakers looking to support similar inter-district structures, while allowing for place-based adaptation and tailoring.
