Miner who campaigns for safety gets good writeup

Ralph Dunlop of The Courier-Journal has a great profile in the Christmas Day paper of "perhaps the most active, relentless and combative mine-safety advocate in Kentucky, at least among working coal miners," Scott Howard of Harlan County.

Health bill will benefit rural poor, but maybe not Democrats in 2010

If you have time on this Christmas weekend to read only one political analysis of the health-care issue, we recommend the thorough, evenhanded and salient piece by John Harris, editor in chief of Politico, and reporters Alexander Burns and Josh Gerstein. It says both parties have staked their near-term and maybe long-term future on the issue, and offers scenarios that would benefit each party.

The story has one paragraph which should make rural journalists realize their responsibility to illuminate the issue for their readers, listeners and viewers, not just trade in one-sided opinion pieces. Harris writes, "The political impact of the bill could be amplified by its geographic reach. Many of the bill’s long-term benefits in terms of insurance subsidies for the poor will go to states in the South where Republicans have held sway for decades. However, many of the beneficiaries will be minorities and the rural poor, who have traditionally had a low turnout in elections." (Read more)

States' competition for stimulus funds for schools is stimulating policy proposals and debate

Education reporters, take note: "The federal Race to the Top competition is helping to drive a flurry of measures nationwide aimed, at least in part, at making states stronger candidates" for part of the $4 billion available for school reform from the economic stimulus package, Eric Roebelen of Education Week reports. Examples: Tennessee might evaluate teachers partly on student test results, and Alabama might get charter schools. Both ideas have stirred opposition. Some states have already implemented changes, hoping to get a funding boost as they face more budget cuts. (Read more)

Small daily gives frank look at troubled local bank

For most of the time since the banking crisis hit, more than a year ago, the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues has encouraged community newspapers to report on the health of their community banks, using easily available public information gathered by federal regulators and public-interest organizations. We have no idea how good the coverage has been nationwide, but we think it would be hard to beat what we've seen this week in The State Journal of Frankfort, Ky.

First the newspaper reported that the leading bank in town, Farmers Bank & Capital Trust Co., plans to start repaying the $30 million it borrowed from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and that its non-performing loans increased from $29 million to $44 million over a six-month period earlier this year, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Reporter Paul Glasser also cited a recent report by the bank to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., revealing that it lost money in September, after making $4.3 million in September 2008.

Those are the kind of figures that could make depositors worry about the solvency of their bank. The newspaper confronted those fears and figures in an editorial (accompanied by a cartoon), saying, "This doesn’t mean the local bank, or its holding company, is on the brink of failure. Most failed institutions are said to have troubled asset ratios of 100 percent." But the editorial also noted that the bank plans to sell stock to repay TARP "at the risk of diluting current shareholders," that the Investigative Reporting Workshop of the American University School of Journalism reported the bank's troubled assets rose to by more than a fifth this year, and its "troubled asset ratio" was 36.9 percent in September, far above the national average of 14.1 percent. And it went back to the start of TARP, noting that the “Treasury Department insisted the loans were not bailouts of participating banks, merely a helping hand to get sound institutions through tough times. But ProPublica, a nonprofit group of investigative journalists, said some of the banks 'have turned out to be not so healthy.'”

The editorial continued relating the local situation to the national, saying the bank "is in the same predicament as its customers: Even though some economists say the recession is over, the recovery is too weak to make anyone feel especially secure. [It] finds neither businesses nor individuals are in the mood to borrow much money, which inevitably depresses the bank’s revenue outlook," the editorial continues. "If Americans really have resolved to reduce their indebtedness, that’s not a bad thing. Farmers Bank was established in an era of fewer consumer goods when people found it prudent to borrow only if they really needed to, and vigilant bankers kept them from diving in over their heads. It’s past time for financiers, and the rest of us, to rediscover the proven wisdom of living within our means."

That's a frank and helpful look at a town's most powerful financial institution, by a newspaper that has a circulation of only 8,000 and is often considered the "local little sister" to metropolitan papers in Louisville and nearby Lexington. While Frankfort is the state capital, it is not metropolitan; it has a population of only 27,000 and a county population of fewer than 50,000, so The State Journal is still very much a community newspaper. It's owned by Ohio-based Dix Communications and makes its edtorials available online only to subscribers, but Opinion Editor Ron Herron has graciously alllowed the pertinent editorial page to be posted on the Institute site, here.

A leading newspaper association executive retires

Bill Monroe of the Iowa Newspaper Association, one of the best and longest-tenured state newspaper association executives, is retiring after 29 years. He will be succeded by Chris Mudge, who has been assistant director.

In this week's INA Bulletin, Monroe writes that the association is a national leader because its 250 or so newspapers are almost all community papers: "Perhaps because there is no Top 50 market newspaper in Iowa, our members are more alike than they are different from one another. They know they can accomplish much working together. . . . They are willing to contribute to a foundation which, in turn, provides them with top quality training at a very affordable cost."

INA probably has the most extensive training program of any state newspaper group. "Our Foundation is the leading state press association foundation, having raised more money in the past three years than any other and exploding the programming options for our members," he writes. We're glad to provide an amplifier as Bill toots the INA horn. Best wishes in retirement, Bill.

Passage of climate bill in 2010 looking less likely

The prospect of a final vote on health-care reform early in 2010, and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit to produce anything close to a binding or global agreement, make it unlikely that the Senate will join the House in passing climate-change legislation, several observers have opined this week. The latest is electric-industry reporter Liam Denning of The Wall Street Journal.

"Selling even a multi-lateral settlement to Americans was going to be difficult in the wake of the 'Climategate' revelations throwing doubt on the science of global warming," Denning writes. "Unilateral legislation ahead of next year's mid-term elections now looks all but impossible. Meanwhile, the alternative route of having the Environmental Protection Agency regulate carbon emissions as pollutants would likely provoke strong legal challenges." (Read more)

UPDATE, Dec. 24: Not just legal challenges, the Journal's Ian Talley writes:. "As part of a deal on a bill to increase the nation's debt limit, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) will allow the GOP to submit a controversial amendment to temporarily suspend new emissions regulation. The agreement was reached late Tuesday. . . . A similar amendment wasn't allowed to come up for a vote earlier this year. Capitol Hill pundits say the majority leader likely feared Republicans might win the vote, with many Democrats also expressing concern about proposed greenhouse-gas regulations." (Read more)

Heartland Publications in Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Heartland Publications LLC, publisher of about 20 daily newspapers, 30 weeklies and other mostly rural publications, "filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday after agreeing with its major lender on a plan to cut the company's debt load by more than half," The Associated Press reports. "The company said the newspapers — in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — would continue operating as usual." For a Wall Street Journal story by Jacqueline Palank, click here. For Heartland's own story, click here. For a list of Heartland's papers by state, with frequency and circulation data, from the Editor and Publisher Yearbook and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, click here.

Health bill would boost Medicare payments in states where most counties are sparsely populated

The Senate health-reform bill "would increase Medicare payments to hospitals and doctors in any state where at least 50 percent of the counties are 'frontier counties,' defined as those having a population density less than six people per square mile," Robert Pear reports for The New York Times. "The Congressional Budget Office has determined that Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming meet the criteria." (Read more)

The bill also includes $10 billion for non-profit community health centers, officially called federally qualified health centers, and $4 billion for expansion of the National Health Service Corps, "which provides loan repayments and scholarships for primary care doctors, dentists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and mental health professionals," both pushed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, Katrina Vanden Heuvel of The Nation notes.

Other winners, as well as losers, are tallied in a list from The Associated Press. For interactive, side-by-side comparisons of the Senate bill with other versions, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, click here. UPDATE, Dec. 23: Differences in the House and Senate bills may be hard to reconcile, writes the Los Angeles Times' Janet Hook, who knows Congress like the back of her hand. UPDATE, Dec. 24: Here's the latest example of that.

2 looks at mountaintop removal: Fear of violence between sides partly animated by religion

Vicki Smith of The Associated Press notes that protesters on both sides in West Virginia have been charged with battery and writes: "Both sides are fighting for a way of life. The miners see the mountains as their livelihood. The environmentalists see them as divine and irreplaceable creations."

Peter Smith of The Courier-Journal reports from Kentucky: "Beneath Appalachian mountains wreathed in mist, dozens of religious leaders gathered to decry a mining practice they see an as affront to both God and nature ... but ... at First Baptist Church in Pikeville, a congregation replete with miners and those in coal-related businesses ... say they 'thank God we've got the coal.' . . . Both sides ... speak of a spiritual duty to strike a balance between jobs and nature, but they see that balancing point at different places.”

Congress appropriates funds for USDA program to cover some of dairy farmers' heavy losses

http://iowaindependent.com/23944/new-usda-program-targets-struggling-dairy-farmers
For the USDA release, click here. For another release, on USDA purchase of cheese to help farmers and food banks, click here.

U.S., 20 other nations to research emissions of greenhouses gases from farms

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121601833.html

Black leaders want inmates counted where they're from, not where incarcerated (often rural)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/16/AR2009121603771.html

Nelson for health bill; change reassures gun owners, helps osteopathic, allopathic med schools

U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska said this morning that he is prepared to join his fellow Democrats in voting for the health-care reform bill, "clearing the way for final passage by Christmas," Shailagh Murray of The Washington Post reports.

"Democratic leaders spent days trying to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and worked late Friday night with Nelson on abortion coverage language that had proved the major stumbling block. But Nelson also secured other favors for his home state," Murray writes. "Asked if he was prepared to support the bill, Nelson said, 'Yeah'."

This may be part of the deal: Majority Leader Harry Reid's floor amendment "aims to relieve gun owners' concerns that reform would view gun ownership as an unhealthy lifestyle and charge them higher premiums or deny them coverage altogether," Chris Frates reports for Politico. "The amendment says that nothing in the bill requires people to disclose whether they own a gun and gun ownership cannot be factored into premiums or coverage decisions."

The biggest section of the amendment creates a grant program for osteopathic and allopathic medical schools to help recruit "students most likely to practice medicine in underserved rural communities, providing rural-focused training and experience, and increasing the number of recent allopathic and osteopathic medical school graduates who practice in underserved rural communities." All rural doctors in Nebraska attend allopathic or osteopathic medical schools, according to this page on the University of Nebraska's medical school Web site.

The Rural Blog is on holiday, sort of

THE RURAL BLOG WILL POST LESS FREQUENTLY AND MORE BRIEFLY THROUGH JAN. 10. If you have items to offer, e-mail them to al.cross@uky.edu or jon.hale@uky.edu. Happy holidays!

Ky. to have its first legal bear hunt in 100 years

A bear overpopulation has led to what will be the first legal Kentucky bear hunt in 100 years this weekend. "As bears have become a sight-seeing attraction and sometimes a nuisance for state parks in Harlan, Letcher and Pike counties [on the state's mountainous southeastern border], local hunters have been eager to add black bears as a big game animal," Dori Hjalmarson of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.

"Kentucky is kind of a unique spot in this region of the United States because they historically had not had bears in great numbers. West Virginia, Tennessee, Virginia have had bears for decades," Steven Dobey, bear program manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, told Hjalmarson. "Their return has been, in the grand scheme, more recent." Dobey estimates there are about 300 black bears in Letcher, Harlan and Pike counties, the only three open to bear hunting tomorrow.

The hunt won't be easy. Only 10 bears may be taken, and many are holed up in their dens during this time of the year. Snow is expected to limit the number of hunters, and much of the hunting area will be private land that is best known to locals, limiting the number of out-of-town hunters. The use of dogs and bait is also not permitted in the Kentucky hunt, as it is in other states, Hjalmarson notes. (Read more)

Monsanto pledges to let farmers use gene-spliced soybeans after patent expires

Contrary to the widely held belief that seed giant Monsanto would require companies to discontinue use of its Roundup Ready 1 soybeans after the patent expires in 2014, the company now says it will continue to allow use of the technology. The announcement "countered a widespread impression in the agriculture business that Monsanto planned to force farmers and seed companies to migrate to a successor product called Roundup Ready 2 Yield, which will remain under patent and is more expensive," Andrew Pollack of The New York Times reports.

The Roundup Ready 1 soybeans will become the first widely grown biotechnology crop to lose patent protection since gene splicing became a mainstay of crop science in the 1990s, Pollack reports. Since farmers and seed companies will no longer have to pay royalties to Monsanto on the gene after 2014, the soybeans could become agricultural biotechnology’s equivalent of a generic drug. We reported Wednesday that an Associated Press review of confidential Monsanto contracts revealed why the company's stranglehold on the seed market had become the subject of an antitrust investigation.

"This is a pretty big concession for Monsanto," Shawn Conley, a soybean specialist at the University of Wisconsin, told Pollack. Monsanto officials said they were confident that most farmers and seed companies would move to Roundup Ready 2, which the company thinks will have higher yields, and that other desirable traits would be added to those crops over time. (Read more)

Researcher envisions Appalachia as honey corridor

An English professor turned bee specialist is hoping to reinvent the way surface mines are reclaimed to include a little more honey. Tammy Horn, a Kentucky native and senior researcher at Eastern Kentucky University, envisions the future of Central Appalachia as the "honey corridor." Her plan starts with reforesting the more than 33,000 surface-mined acres in Eastern Kentucky and neighboring West Virginia in a way that supports bee pollination, Karin Fischer of The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

One day, Horn hopes for 25,000 bee hives on former strip mines, but for now her project, Coal Country Beeworks, has 53 hives on five sites. One of the first mining companies to agree to Horn's plan was the International Coal Group, which followed her plan to include trees, shrubs and flowers that pollinators prefer in the reclamation plan for one of its surface mines. The signature tree for Appalachian apiarists is the sourwood, which has been rarely seeded on reclaimed land, Fischer reports.

"People wouldn't drive five miles to see a reclaimed surface-mine site, but they come 1,000 miles to see a bee yard," Don Gibson, ICG's director of permitting and regulatory affairs, told Fischer. Already more than 250 people have visited the three ICG sites that house the bee project. The company uses these visits as an opportunity to talk about modern-day mining and reclamation methods. "If this region can see the economic promise going forward," Gibson added, "it will be a benefit for everyone involved." (Read more)

As more rural residents drive to jobs elsewhere, fire departments have trouble finding volunteers

Seventy-two percent of the nation's more than 1.2 million firefighters are volunteers, says the National Fire Protection Agency. That percentage is a lot closer to 100 percent in rural communities, where many are finding it harder and harder to even fill a full crew, David Miller of the Nebraska-baded Center for Rural Affairs reports.

"You go through times when there are a shortage of people. In our community especially ... there are a lot of people that work out of town," Tarz Mullinex, the chief of Beresford (S.D.) Fire and Rescue, told Miller. "So, you always cherish anybody that happens to be employed in town or a business person to be on the fire department for the day time fires." South Dakota uses a program called mutual aid, which alerts nearby towns of large fires in areas with a small department.

Finding businessses willing to let their employees leave at a moment's notice to respond to a fire is also difficult. "There are no laws requiring business owners in South Dakota to let volunteer firefighters answer emergency calls while they are working," Miller reports. "For employers it becomes a delicate balance between running a business and protecting the community." (Read more)

EPA delays decisions on coal ash as one-year anniversary of Kingston spill approaches

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday it will delay the release of proposed new rules on the handling and disposal of toxic ash from coal-fired power plants. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson had promised the rules proposal would be issued before the end of the year, Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette reports. The announcement came five days before the one-year anniversary of the Dec. 22 collapse of the coal-ash impoundment at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant near Kingston, Tenn.

That spill sent more than 1 billion gallons of coal ash, containing more than 2.6 million pounds of toxic pollutants, into local streams, fields and homes, Ward writes, and gave new ammunition to environmental groups campaigning for stricter regulations on coal ash. "In October, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report said the Obama administration was considering a 'hybrid' approach that would regulate some coal-ash dumps as hazardous waste sites and subject others to less strict non-hazardous waste rules," Ward reports.

Last week the Electric Power Research Institute warned in congressional testimony that an EPA hazardous-waste designation for coal ash could force nearly 200 coal-fired power plants nationwide to close. Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans, a longtime advocate of tougher coal-ash regulations, told Ward the EPA delay was "unfortunate," and she hopes that EPA "will prevail over the power industry's fear mongering and campaign of disinformation." (Read more)

Terri Likens, editor of the weekly Roane County News, reflected this week on the spill and her newspaper's coverage, including an aerial view: "It was on that chilly morning flight that I finally was able to really comprehend the enormity of the TVA disaster. I knew then that the coverage of this event was going to be nearly a full-time beat." The recession kept her from replacing a reporter," So with a national-level disaster taking up even more time, we had to tackle what we could while taking a hit to the newsroom. I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish — even while short-staffed — in dealing with this disaster." (Read more)

Calif. Central Valley's dichotomy stems from water

Traveling south on Interstate 5 from San Francisco to Los Angeles offers drivers an interesting glimpse at the widening water disparity in California's Central Valley. The view out the driver-side window is one of green fields and dark, leafy orchards, but the view out the passenger-side window is one of sand-colored grass and ground worn to dust. The difference between the two sides, Lisa M. Hamilton reports for the San Francisco Panorama, is water.

"Money alone can't solve the economic crisis taking place on the Westside," Hamilton writes. "Only one thing can: water." Hamilton's narrative is too comprehensive and in-depth to do justice by excerpting here, but we encourage you to read her examination of the greater forces at work in the Central Valley drought. (Read more)

Georgia newspapers offer cheap subscriptions, free job-wanted ads to the local unemployed

Three newspapers in rural Georgia have developed "highly specialized economic recovery packages" for subscribers, reports the SNPA Bulletin of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.

The Daily Citizen, in the carpetmaking center of Dalton, was the first. In late October, the Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. paper began selling the unemployed subscriptions for $1. "Interested residents needed only to bring verification to the newspaper that their home address matched the address where they were receiving their unemployment check," Sean Ireland writes for SNPA.

Publisher William Bronson wrote, “We want area residents who are experiencing difficult times to stay connected to their community . . . while also helping them find a job.” He said the 12,500-circulation paper “will be delivering these newspapers at a loss, but we feel it is more important to connect those looking for a job with those hiring as soon as possible.”

In November, The Dahlonega Nugget, a 5,400-circulation weekly southeast of Dalton, and the Times Georgian of Carrollton, an 8,000-circ. daily just southwest of Atlanta, started similar measures. The Nugget offers renewable three-month subscriptions for $1 to any local resident looking for work. “With the local unemployment rate now over 11 percent, we want to make sure that none of our readers are forced to give up their connection to the community for economic reasons,” said Wayne Knuckles, right, editor and publisher of the Community Newspapers Inc. paper. “We all have to work together to keep our community strong during these tough times, and this is one small way The Nugget can help.”

The Times-Georgian, owned by Paxton Media Group, is offering discounted three-month subscriptions for $5 to unemployed readers, and free, eight-line classified "job wanted" ads for up to two weeks at no charge. “We know many jobs sites today require a fee and might require a family to move,” said Publisher Leonard Woolsey. “We’d just like to make sure everyone fully explores the employment opportunities in Carroll County without any out-of-pocket expense to them.” He added, “Many of our subscribers and readers have supported us in the past,” Woolsey said. “We need to make sure we are there to give back in their time of need.”

Rural schools less likely to have advanced math

Students in rural areas and small towns have less access to higher-level mathematics courses than their peers elsewhere, says a new study from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. Nearly 50 percent of rural and small-town students attend schools that only offer one to three advanced math courses, and only 10 percent have access to seven or more advanced math courses, defined as those beyond algebra II and geometry.

Suburban and urban schools offer, on average, three to four more advanced math courses than rural schools, Carsey reports. Only 15 percent of suburban students have three or fewer advanced math courses to choose from, while 58 percent of urban and 41 percent of suburban students have seven or more courses to choose from.

The report warns that students who do not take these courses typically score lower on assessment tests, which can restrict their higher education and job opportunities. "Limited access to advanced math courses limits the number of qualified students filling the job pipelines in science, technology, engineering and mathematics – the STEM fields," lead author Suzanne Graham, assistant professor of education at UNH, said in a news release.


Limited course offerings in rural schools are not limited to math, Carsey reports. Only 53 percent of rural schools offer advanced placement courses in any subject, compared to 72 percent in small towns, 85 percent in suburbs and 78 percent in cities. (Read more)

First round of stimulus broadband grants issued

Vice President Joe Biden announced the first of 18 projects for rural broadband investment funded by the stimulus act today. Other first-round winners will be announced on a rolling schedule between now and February. For the initial list, click here.

An outline of the initial investment from the White House shows an initial concentration on so-called "middle-mile projects." The middle mile is the link between "last-mile," or far-flung, Internet connections and the network of large, high-bandwidth fiber optic cables that span the globe and are known as the Internet backbone. Additional investment in rural last-mile networks will also be funded through the stimulus act to communities where middle-mile investment is not enough to make last-mile service cost effective for private providers.

"President Obama appears to have struck the right balance with the initial announcements on broadband infrastructure awards," Laura M. Taylor, chief policy officer of Connected Nation, a broadband-promotion group, told The Rural Blog in an e-mail. "While the supply-side projects are obviously important for broadband stimulus efforts, effective demand-side programs are critical to accompany these network deployments if we hope to see any sustainable positive economic effects."
Taylor added, "Connected Nation research in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio shows that the largest barrier to broadband adoption is a lack of awareness about broadband’s benefits. Across these three states, 44 percent of those without a home broadband connection say 'I don’t need broadband.' Among vulnerable populations such as low-income residents, minorities, and people with disabilities, this awareness challenge is even greater."

UPDATE, Dec. 17: Cecilia Kang of The Washington Post reports that $212 million of the $183 million in grants go to middle-mile projects. The largest grant, $39.7 million, aims to bring broadband "to about 70 rural communities in upstate New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont," Kang writes. "In northern Georgia, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, about $33 million is to be spent on a project to help bring the area's 40,000 homes into the high-speed Internet age." Biden went to Dawsonville, Ga., to announce the grants.

The next largest grant, for $25 million, is for an 1,100-mile fiber-optic network in Maine. "The network will pass through more than 100 communities with 110,000 households and will connect 10 University of Maine campuses," Errine Haines of The Associated Press reports. "Other projects receiving funds include a 4G wireless network to be built by an Alaska Native Corporation in southwestern Alaska, a fiber-to-the-home project in a remote corner of New Hampshire and computer centers for 84 libraries in Arizona." (Read more)

Many rural young adults want health insurance but find it unaffordable

Young adults often choose not to buy health insurance, but others need it and can't afford it, according to a commentary from a University of Kentucky student for National Public Radio, via the Appalachian Media Institute.

"When it comes to health care, I do have options — just not good ones," writes Brittany Hunsaker, left. She explains that when she turned 19 she aged out of Kentucky's insurance program for low-income youth, and soon a health condition made her choose between oral surgery and textbooks for the semester; textbooks lost.

"In the rural county where I grew up, it's not just youth who don't have insurance," writes Hunsaker, who is from Whitesburg in Letcher County. "Adults, unemployed or underemployed in minimum wage jobs, are also without coverage." She explains as she gets older she worries her health will keep getting worse, but for now she ignores aches and pains and simply Googles her symptoms to see if they are serious enough to warrant a medical bill.

Graduating from college doesn't seem to offer any more health insurance coverage for Hunsaker; she doesn't have any friends who earned a job with coverage after graduation. "A sick workforce only intensifies an already sick economy," she writes. "It's hard to work when you can't afford eyeglasses for your astigmatism, dental work for your rotting teeth, or medicine for pneumonia. We're constantly being told we are the future of the country, but we're starting out a step behind." (Read more)

Some rural states not seeking new U.S. education funds, saying rules are skewed for urban schools

Some rural states are seeking money in the first round of Race to the Top, the U.S. Department of Education's new program to encourage innovation and progress in schools, because they feel the regulations cater to urban areas, Alyson Klein of Education Week reports. For instance, Vermont chose not to apply because it would be penalized for not having charter schools, even though it felt it had innovative public schools. North Dakota will also be passing on the first round, but plans to tailor a unique plan for the second round due to the state's "rural nature."

"Most of the federal grants are organized around concentrations of poverty; we don't have really have concentrations," Rae Ann Knopf, Vermont's deputy commissioner of education for transformation and innovation, told Klein. Knopf, who previously worked in the Philadelphia schools, said she appreciates the need to help urban districts, but told Klein, "There are states in other rural areas that really would like to do some good work." (Read more)

You can see the list of states applying for Race to the Top funding here.