Southern Governors Committed to High-Performing Rural Schools

SEATTLE -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a grant of more than $390,000 to help governors begin to think about how to create high-performing rural schools that ultimately improve graduation and college-going rates throughout the South. The project, New Traditions: Options for Rural High School Excellence, will focus on providing Southern state education leaders new ways of meeting the challenge of improving struggling rural schools, most notably by identifying a range of successful schools that can be emulated and replicated. Funds will go to the Southern Governors’ Association (SGA), the Rural Schools and Community Trust and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB).

A group of key education advisors appointed by governors from SGA-member states will have the opportunity to visit a variety of small high schools throughout the country to learn how they have been able to raise achievement, graduate more of their students, and send them off to college, despite facing obstacles that are similar to those encountered by many rural schools in Southern states. The project also will help identify high-performing rural schools in the South, providing state leaders with an opportunity to learn from successful schools that are close to home.

“Seeing these schools firsthand will help us start to think out of the box and come up with new, innovative solutions to a growing problem,” said Governor Bob Wise of West Virginia, who initiated this effort at last year’s SGA annual meeting. “Southern governors won’t just stand by as our high school dropout rates climb and our kids don’t get the education they need to succeed in today’s economy. We are going to do whatever it takes to reform our schools now.”

According to the Manhattan Institute, one-third of eighth graders in America today do not graduate from high school, and of those who do graduate, less than half are prepared for college. The problem is even greater for minorities, with nearly half of all African-American and Hispanic students not making it to graduation day.

Rural high schools like those in urban areas struggle with high drop-out rates and confront many of the same problems. Their populations are racially diverse, many of their students live in poverty, schools are hard to staff and their budgets are limited. Yet to date, high school reform efforts have in large part focused on big city schools. This is despite the fact that one-third of all U.S. schoolchildren go to school in rural areas or small towns with less than 25,000 people. Furthermore, rural America is much poorer than urban America, with 59 of the 66 poorest counties being rural.

“We’ve got to increase the number of poor and minority young people who graduate high school and go on to college, and that means concentrating more of our efforts in the rural South,” said Tom Vander Ark, executive director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “There’s no question that governors in the South have the will and the ability to do what it takes to help graduate more students that are prepared for college and work.”

The project will utilize the expertise of the Rural Trust and SREB to conduct a survey of rural high schools in the South in order to identify those that have generated high levels of achievement under difficult circumstances. This work will be included in a study that outlines the education challenges facing states, offers proven strategies for overcoming these challenges, and provides governors and other leaders tools to develop reform strategies. The study will be unveiled at the SGA annual meeting in September, in time to allow governors to incorporate its findings into their 2005 legislative calendar.

"Southern governors have made a real commitment to reforming our schools and we understand that it takes cooperation with a variety of people and organizations to create fundamental change," said Governor Sonny Perdue (GA) of the SGA. "We have to work closely with teachers, superintendents, parents, state and local elected officials, and other community leaders to build consensus about meeting the educational needs of our children."

SGA will receive the largest portion of the grant, nearly $223,000. SREB will receive $89,000 and the Rural Trust will receive $79,000. Upon receipt of funds, the SGA will coordinate the site visits to high-performing schools.  The Rural Trust and SREB will establish criteria for high-performing rural Southern schools and identify additional schools that meet these criteria.

The final report for this project will be released and discussed at the Southern Governors’ Association 70th Annual Meeting, September 12-14, hosted by 2003-4 SGA Chairman Governor Mark R. Warner in Richmond, Virginia.

This new investment builds on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's overall strategy to help improve high school graduation and college readiness rates nationally. To date, the foundation has invested more than $740 million to support over 1,900 schools, the majority of which are high schools.

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The Southern Governors’ Association is the oldest and traditionally the largest of the regional governors associations. Its mission is to provide a bipartisan forum to help shape and implement national policy and find solutions to state and regional problems. In addition, the association promotes innovative programs and practices, and provides policy information on pressing issues to its members. SGA’s membership includes Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Virginia and West Virginia.