A BETTER IOWA

Rural students need equal educational opportunity

Susan Assouline and Harold O. Levy

Americans like to think of our nation as the land of opportunity, where any boy or girl can grow up to achieve great things. But, in reality, parental income and the neighborhood where children are raised are major factors in determining how far they go in school and their chances of finding good-paying and fulfilling jobs.

No one’s future prospects should be determined by parentage or ZIP code.

A 2014 White House report illustrates how wide the education gap is between the wealthy and the poor, stating: “While half of all people from high-income families have a bachelor’s degree by age 25, just one in 10 people from low-income families do.” When a child of plenty has a five times greater chance of becoming a college graduate than a child of poverty, it’s hard to argue they have an equal shot at success.

Mitchellville Elementary School fifth-grader Ethan Smith concentrates on his robotic project while being observed by Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds, Principal Joe Nelson and State Representative Zach Nunn on Feb. 4, 2016.

And the U.S. Census Bureau reported in December that while 29 percent of adults in urban areas have a bachelor’s degree, only 19.5 percent in rural areas do. About 60 million people, including 13.4 million children, live in rural areas. They deserve equal opportunity as well.

The education gap dividing Americans by income and location is not just profoundly unfair, but a tremendous waste of talent. It means that we fail to benefit from the brainpower of millions of young people who could grow up to be doctors, scientists, entrepreneurs, inventors, teachers and fill other important roles. We simply can’t afford this unfairness.

While the obstacles to education facing low-income children in America’s poor urban communities are widely recognized, obstacles facing children in rural areas get less attention.

For example, small rural schools are frequently unable to offer as many courses and enrichment programs as larger schools in cities and their suburbs. As a result, many outstanding students in rural schools wind up in classes that don’t challenge them and never achieve their full potential.

A 2015 University of New Hampshire study found that “rural students have considerably less access to AP (Advanced Placement) courses than their peers in more urban areas.” While only about 3 percent of urban school districts and 5 percent of suburban districts have no students enrolled in AP classes, the figure jumps to 47 percent of rural districts.

Fortunately, the barriers standing in the way of bright students in rural areas are not insurmountable. At the high school level, a growing number of colleges are making classes available online, including massive open online courses. Some, such as the Global Freshman Academy run by edX and Arizona State University, offer classes for college credit.

But we can’t afford to wait until high school to recognize students with great potential, because by then it is often too late. Providing these students with academic enrichment in earlier grades enables them to be properly challenged, grow academically and thrive in college.

There are many successful examples of such programs. One that we are involved in is the STEM Excellence and Leadership Program run by the Belin-Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development at the University of Iowa

Over three years, the program is enabling 330 high-achieving middle school students from low-income families in 11 rural Iowa school districts to participate in rigorous math and science enrichment classes before and after school. Teachers also grow professionally by gaining valuable experience teaching high-performing students.

Students, who get four hours of math and science enrichment each week of the school year, have advanced significantly. And when asked to describe what they get out of the Belin-Blank STEM program, students have expressed not only enthusiasm for the program but for advanced learning.

“I love being in STEM because I believe it is helping set me up for my future career path,” one student wrote. “It teaches so many things while also being fun. I am so thankful that my school is able to have a STEM program and I hope it continues not only for me but also other students to come in the future.”

Susan Assouline

Of course, middle school enrichment programs cost money. The Belin-Blank program received a $500,000 grant in 2014 from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation for its first two years of operations and is getting funding from the University of Iowa for the third.

More funding is needed to continue this valuable program and much more is needed to create similar programs in middle schools across rural America. The funding is an important investment if we want to narrow and eventually eliminate the educational achievement gap that separates rural communities from the rest of our nation.

Harold O. Levy

Our national goal should be to create equal educational opportunity for every child, regardless of income level, geographic location, race, ethnicity, gender or any other factor irrelevant to academic ability. A ZIP code or parental income should not determine a student’s future; ability should.

SUSAN ASSOULINE  is director of the Belin-Blank Center and a professor at the University of Iowa. 

HAROLD O. LEVY is former New York City schools chancellor and is executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which has awarded more than $152 million in scholarships to high-achieving students from low-income families and over $90 million in grants to organizations that serve such students.