The Forgotten 20% - Achievement and Growth in Rural Schools Across the Nation

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen

The study analyzes achievement and growth patterns in rural versus nonrural schools using fall and spring assessments from kindergarten through eighth grade for 840,000 students across 8,800 public schools. Rural students begin slightly ahead but fall behind by middle school, driven by larger summer learning losses. The research also finds that Black–White achievement gaps widen during the school year in both rural and nonrural settings, emphasizing seasonal learning as a key lens for interpreting rural performance.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Overview and Research Focus

Rural vs. Nonrural Achievement Patterns

Summer Learning Losses

Within-Year Achievement Gaps

Context and Challenges in Rural Education

Transportation and Teacher Supply

Funding and Course Access

Community and External Influences

AERA Open January-December 2021, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1–17 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584211052046 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2021. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) The Forgotten 20%: Achievement and Growth in Rural Schools Across the Nation Angela Johnson Megan Kuhfeld NWEA James Soland University of Virginia Leveraging achievement data measured in the fall and spring of kindergarten through eighth grade for 840,000 students attending 8,800 public schools, we report novel evidence on how achievement and growth patterns differ between rural and nonrural schools. Rural students start kindergarten slightly ahead of nonrural students but fall behind by middle school. The divergence is driven by larger summer losses for rural students. In both rural and nonrural schools, we provide additional evidence that Black–White achievement gaps widen during the school year. These findings highlight the importance of seasonal learning patterns in interpreting rural school performance. Keywords: achievement, achievement gap, descriptive analysis, hierarchical linear modeling, rural education ApproximAtely one in five students in the United States attend schools in a rural locale (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2018) . Furthermore, more than half of all operating regular school districts and about one third of all public schools are in rural areas, which means that a large proportion of the country’s educational infrastructure serves rural students. However, the needs of rural schools and students are often overlooked by education policy because rural students are geographically dispersed across their state and the nation, making it difficult to target and effectively change their learning circumstances. Many rural school districts are very small, with a median enrollment of under 500 students. The majority of rural students attend school in a state where they make up less than 25%(in some cases, less than 15%) of overall enrollment (Showalter et al., 2019) . Rural schools are diverse in terms of demographics, resources, and student needs (Greenough & Nelson, 2015; Strange, 2011) and represent contexts with unique challenges and opportunities relative to schools that are not rural (see Arnold et al., 2005 for a review). Aspects of this unique context almost certainly affect academic skills among students attending rural schools, likely in both positive and negative ways. Relative to other locales, rural students, schools, and communities have unique challenges that may deflate academic achievement and growth. For example, students in rural locations often travel considerable distances to get to school, contributing to fatigue and reduced learning time. Furthermore, the costs of operating those transportation systems can affect school/district budgets, oftentimes draining resources (Arnold et al., 2005) . The remoteness of many schools can also create real difficulties for recruitment and retention of teachers, which could suggest that teacher quality is lower among rural schools (Arnold et al., 2005; Lee & McIntire, 2000). Among teachers who do get hired and stay, professional training is less abundant, and thus, teachers in rural schools tend to be less credentialed, further raising questions about teacher quality (Lee & McIntire, 2000) . These teacher labor supply issues, including shortages, can also affect students’ access to curriculum. For instance, there is evidence that advanced coursework is much less abundant in rural schools, including reduced access to algebra in middle school to advanced math courses in high school (Anderson & Chang, 2011; Lee & McIntire, 2000) . Course offerings are also hampered by a lack of resources. In general, rural schools often lack the facilities, infrastructure for operation and maintenance, course materia

FAQs

What main difference does the study find between rural and nonrural students’ achievement growth?

Rural students start kindergarten slightly ahead, but by middle school they fall behind nonrural students. The divergence is driven by larger summer losses for rural students.

How do Black–White achievement gaps change during the school year?

In both rural and nonrural schools, the findings show that Black–White achievement gaps widen during the school year.

Why does the paper emphasize seasonal learning patterns?

Because rural performance is strongly affected by timing—especially losses over summer—seasonal learning patterns are central for interpreting how achievement and growth differ by locale.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen