Reading about new rural teacher recruitment initiatives is like watching a sitcom romance unfold. I want to hope for the best, but I know better. The latest display of this comes from a new initiative...

Maybe this is the turning point.  Education advocacy is exhausting—particularly in rural communities like mine, where our opportunities are limited and our challenges are unique. A myriad of stereotypes obscure the reality of life in...

In his provocative memoir “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” author J.D. Vance describes his childhood upbringing in Middletown, Ohio. Heavily influenced by his family’s Kentucky roots and their...

Before the pandemic, I could count on one hand the amount of times I had heard someone say “self-care.” Now it’s the new buzz-word that everyone seems to throw around. But do we really...

Northern Cass School District in North Dakota has a story that's familiar to many rural districts. Their graduation rate is high, and their students typically demonstrate above average performances on state tests. However, it...

In mid March of 2020, the normal world, reality came tumbling down as a novel coronavirus, Covid-19, shuttered schools and transformed face to face teaching into an untenable position in almost all public and...

Excellent teaching is what happens when sincerity and authority meet.

It’s no secret that students have suffered academically and emotionally throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. But should the brunt of the recovery process be borne by schools alone, or is a more comprehensive, community-wide approach...