Education Commons^™

Preparing Teachers For Rural Appointments, Zoe A. Barley

The Rural Educator

Rural schools face difficulties recruiting or retaining qualified teachers. Prospective teachers need help better understanding the nature of rural teaching. Despite many pluses, collegial isolation, low salaries, multiple grade or subject teaching assignments, and lack of familiarity with rural schools and communities are challenges to new teachers in rural schools. This study examined nine mid-continent institutions for five components identified as preparing and retaining teachers to teach in rural schools. From the 120 teacher preparation institutions in the mid-continent, 17 confirmed the existence of a rural program emphasis. Nine of the 17 had three or more rural programs. Three of …