Marybeth J. Mattingly

Rates of Beginning Teachers: Examining One Indicator of School Quality in an Equity Context

ABSTRACT The authors use national data to examine variation in the proportion of beginning teachers in school districts across the United States by poverty, race, and urbanicity. In addition to being a proxy for teacher quality, the proportion of beginning teachers in a district also speaks to teacher turnover and therefore broader school quality issues. Findings suggest that districts with high-poverty levels; greater proportions of Black, Hispanic, and American Indian populations; and located in rural areas tend to have high percentages of novice teachers. This research provides insight into the persistent disparities in opportunity that confront children of poverty, color, and rural environments.

The Restraint and Seclusion of Students With a Disability: Examining Trends in U.S. School Districts and Their Policy Implications

Restraint and seclusion are possible aversive responses to problematic student behavior used in some public schools, most commonly on students with a disability. Considerable recent attention has been paid to these practices both in the media and in Congress, and subsequently roughly half of U.S. states have made changes to their laws or policy statements around restraint and seclusion since 2009. In this article, we illuminate trends in restraint and seclusion across the United States in recent years to better inform policy discussions on these matters. Specifically, we examined rates of reported restraint and seclusion across U.S. districts in the 2009–2010 and 2011–2012 school years. We found that general trends persist between the data collections: Most districts report no/little use of restraint or seclusion, with a small percentage of districts reporting exceedingly high rates. Furthermore, the vast majority of variation exists within rather than between states, which may suggest the importance of local factors such as district policy, school culture, and practitioner support in determining the frequency of restraint and seclusion in schools.

Advanced Placement and Rural Schools: Access, Success, and Exploring Alternatives.

Completing Advanced Placement (AP) coursework is an important part of the selective college admissions process, and access to AP coursework can be viewed as a measure of equal opportunity. Relatively little research has fully examined how access to AP coursework is mediated by school characteristics. Rural schools are at a particular disadvantage in promoting AP success due to a lack of sufficiently prepared students, teaching constraints, and other logistical challenges. This study uses regression to analyze AP access, enrollment, and success across a rich data set of U.S. school districts. We find that remote, small, and poor rural schools are considerably less likely to offer any AP courses. Even for rural schools that do offer AP coursework, enrollment and success rates lag well behind more urban and affluent schools. We explore potential policy solutions and examine alternative advanced coursework options for those rural schools that do not offer AP.

Rural Families in Transition

This chapter documents the transformation of rural families through an examination of two of the most important changes in American family life—changes in family structure and changes in women’s employment and family breadwinning—from 1970 to 2009, using Current Population Survey (CPS) data. Particular attention is paid to variations between families living in rural areas, central cities, and suburban places. We identify trends in marriage and divorce, the rise in single motherhood, and decreased fertility. Additionally, we examine the rising diversity of families resulting from increased educational attainment and greater female labor force participation. Finally, we discuss the implications of these changes in family structure and family employment patterns for income inequality and poverty. Over time, we find that rural families increasingly resemble urban families, but important differences remain.

“We’re All Sitting at the Same Table”: Challenges and Strengths in Service Delivery in Two Rural New England Counties

Rural service providers often struggle to meet the needs of low-income residents, given the constraints of geography and facets of local culture that stigmatize seeking and receiving help. Although the challenges faced by low-income, rural families are well studied, less is known about how service providers structure programs to serve rural residents. Here, we use qualitative data from two rural New England counties to explore how characteristics of specific communities shape the challenges of their social service systems and the strategies employed to overcome them. We find many common challenges across place and time, including distrust of outsiders and insufficient program funds. However, in the more remote county of the two, service providers have developed synergistic relationships to support vulnerable residents, whereas in the other, politics and town boundaries have impeded this collective approach. We conclude with a review of service delivery strategies, acknowledging the heterogeneity of rural communities.