You will never hear Dave Ardrey talk about a rural-urban divide in education, even though he is head of an organization that advocates for small and rural schools.
Instead, he sees rural and urban “differences” — which are not necessarily a bad thing.
They are unique schools in different types of communities that educate students on similar platforms, with specified standards under the same state policies, says Ardrey, executive director of the Association of Illinois Rural and Small Schools.
Busing is an example of the differences.
“It is the lifeblood of rural schools,” he says.
In urban areas, public transportation typically gets more kids to school. And while a proposal like electrified buses may make sense in low-mileage urban settings, in an 800-square-mile rural district, it doesn’t, Ardrey says.
Teacher shortages are another area where rural schools struggle with differences because they often can’t compete with wages and amenities urban schools can offer, he says.
There are times when urban and rural education interests compete or clash, but working together is more common.
“I travel around the state a lot and see a lot of collegiality and collaboration among public schools,” says Kevin Sandlin, executive director of the Missouri Association of Rural Education.
He has seen larger school districts offering elective courses or other resources that a small district couldn’t afford. Most schools emphasize public education as a whole, he says.
“I’m very proud of that,” he says.
Rob Calvin, an agriculture teacher and FFA leader, has also seen a lot of melding between urban and rural students during his time in education. He teaches at Lincoln County R-III School District in eastern Missouri.
When he was an FFA student in the same district in the early ’90s, 80-90% of the FFA members were male and most of the 200 students came from farm families. Now there are more than 400 FFA members here.
“Most of the growth is in females in ag education and students with non-ag production backgrounds,” he says of the school district 50 miles north of St. Louis.
Today the focus is on teaching agriculture literacy concepts instead of farming methods or animal care. It’s more consumer- based, helping students make good decisions about food purchases and ag policy. Because students don’t need agriculture classes to graduate, they want to be here, Calvin says.
After a failed referendum, Central Illinois’ McLean County Unit 5 school district proposed the closure of Carlock Elementary. A second vote saved the school.
Sandlin is concerned that some things could change the current cooperative system.
“Open enrollment could hurt that and make it competitive,” he says.
He says he is afraid that a larger district, instead of helping one with 50 students, might put its own interest first if it is a matter of enrollment numbers and finances.
“I hope that will never happen,” Sandlin says, adding he is optimistic the attitude towards collaboration is strong.
“Between 70 and 80% of our schools have less than 1,000 students in Missouri,” he says of the 518 public school districts in the state.
With those numbers, such schools have a voice, he says.
In some cases the differences in urban and rural viewpoints are most pronounced in votes on taxes that affects a mixed school district.
Central Illinois’ McLean County Unit 5 school district, which serves 13,000 students in urban, suburban and rural areas, was faced with a $12 million budget deficit in 2022. It called a referendum in November of that year warning that if it didn’t pass, programs would be cut and schools might have to close. The referendum failed. The district started cutting programs as required and made plans to close a school while trying to pass the bond issue a second time in April 2023.
The school it proposed to close, Carlock Elementary, is in a rural area that had voted against the first referendum. According to coverage by the area’s daily newspaper The Pantagraph, some of the residents there said they felt targeted, like it was an ultimatum or a threat.
In the April 2023 vote, the referendum passed by more than 59%. Programs are being reinstated and the school will not close.
While some saw the school district’s actions as an ultimatum, experts in the field disagree.
“I don’t see it as a threat,” says Margaret Buckton of the Urban Education Network of Iowa and the Rural School Advocates of Iowa. “I don’t think its manipulation.”
It’s a matter of resources, she says. A small school needs a principal, nurse, custodian and all the other support staff. The goal is to balance budgets reasonably and help people understand it, she says, which might look like school board members visiting retirement centers, Rotary Club meetings and coffee shops to talk about the issues.
In answer to the question of whether there are urban-rural tensions today, “It depends on where you are,” Buckton says.
“A good way to describe society right now is ‘hyper-partisan.’ People see things one way or another,” she says.
There doesn’t seem to be as much urban and rural “angst” in education as in politics in general, says Buckton, who advocates for both urban and rural students.
“We strive to have consistency in message,” she says of Iowa School Finance Information Services’ efforts to advocate for education in general.
However, differences between urban and rural funding will always remain as long as property taxes are part of the funding formula, Ardrey says. In Illinois, especially, it will always create a disparity between urban, rural and suburban areas because there are such different values on homes, he says.
“My entire lifetime, education funding has been an issue,” he says.
Illinois has made progress by putting evidence-based funding in place.
“We’ve seen some more equity in play,” he says, but it’s still a long process that will take 10, 15 or 20 years to rectify.
