Policy Development Page

Rural Community Alliance engages members in a collaborative process to identify state and local policies that would favorably impact rural schools and communities. Organization staff develops materials for members to effectively convey their beliefs and priorities to policy makers, trains members in policy advocacy, and provides information to members to allow them to act in a timely manner to affect local, state, and national policy.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Members identify policy priorities and learn how to effectively convey priorities to legislators.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Members practice telling their stories in order to be more effective policy advocates.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Rural Community Alliance staff creates advocacy materials that members use to convey their priorities to policy makers.

RCA POLICY PRIORITIES

Community Development Issues

1. Require school districts to return unused buildings in consolidated schools to their communities.
2. Funding for rural youth development.
3. Funding for small communities for arts, arts education, and heritage projects.
4. Funding for the Department of Rural Services for rural community development.
5. Initiative to identify appropriate industries and allocate support resources for rural economic development.

Education Issues

1. Limit length of bus rides.
2. Amend or repeal Act 60 to reduce number of school being consolidated.
3. Preserve funding for isolated schools.
4. Look at more equitable funding formula.
5. Support distance learning.
6. Study ways to make career and technical education more relevant to economic development.

Formula Fairness Campaign

The Formula Fairness Campaign (www.formulafairness.com ) is a national effort sponsored by Rural Community Alliance’s national partner The Rural School and Community Trust (www.ruraledu.org ). The campaign’s goal is to eliminate unfair and discriminatory treatment of small and rural districts in the federal Title I formula for distributing funds to local school districts under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Almost every rural school in Arkansas loses funding under the current formula, which favors larger school districts, and the state as a whole loses almost $5 million annually.

Rural Community Alliance has been an active partner in the campaign to revise the Title I funding formula by signing on as an organizational co-sponsor; sponsoring an informational presentation by Marty Strange, Policy Director of the RSCT, at the RCA Summer Conference and the Arkansas Rural Education Association’s Summer Conference; encouraging members and others to sign the on-line petition; and contacting Arkansas Senators and Representatives to ask for their support to revise the Title I formula.

(RCA’s involvement in the Formula Fairness Campaign is funded by a grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

RCA members Jayma Roten and Lavina Grandon visited with Congressman Rick Crawford (1st District) about Formula Fairness. Congressman Crawford and 4th District Congressman Mike Ross are co-sponsors of the All Children are Equal (ACE) Act to more equitably distribute Title I funds for children in poverty.

Opportunity to Learn Campaign

The Opportunity to Learn Campaign is a national effort coordinated by the Schott Foundation for Public Education and dedicated to ensuring that every child has all the resources necessary to access a quality education. The national campaign is based on the premise that outcomes are better and more equitable when children have access to

• Early childhood education;
• Highly effective teachers;
• College preparatory curriculum; and
• Equitable instructional resources.

The Arkansas Opportunity to Learn coalition is a broad-based group of philanthropists, advocacy organizations, community groups, and education practitioners who have come together to ensure that every Arkansas student has an equal opportunity to learn. In addition to the four national goals, Arkansas state partners have identified other priorities related to parental and community involvement, out-of-school programs and remediation, effective discipline policies, special education and alternative learning environments, and education within the juvenile justice system.

Rural Community Alliance members have also identified OTL priorities that specifically impact rural students, including local schools and limits on school bus transportation times.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dr. John Jackson, President and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, leader of the national Opportunity to Learn Campaign, addressed Arkansas’ first Opportunity to Learn Summit about the need to close achievement gaps by closing opportunity gaps between low-income and minority students and their higher income, white counterparts.

As part of the Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign, Rural Community Alliance partnered with the Washington, D.C., nonprofit Critical Exposure to allow rural students in the Ozark Mountain School District and the Dollarway School district to use photography to convey the opportunities and barriers to learning in their communities.

 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Dollarway students get their cameras and begin looking for photo-ops that convey the Opportunity to Learn theme.