ļ»æEpisode 48 - 2025 & The Impact of Policy Shifts with Mark Lieberman and David Ardrey
Michelle Rathman: Hello one and all and welcome to the Rural Impact. You know, we are the podcast that works to connect those dots between policy and rural everything. I'm Michelle Rathman. It's great to be here with you today and a special thanks to all of our return listeners and subscribers. And of course, if you're new to the table, we are so glad you're here. Have a seat. Stay for a while.
All right, today's episode is the second in our series. We're calling quite simply 2025 and the Impact of Policy Shifts and our focus is on rural education today. We are recording this episode on January 27th. You're hearing it just a few days after that, so that means it's very likely there's been a few developments since our conversations.
News is happening very, very fast. In any event, what my guests have to share today is highly relevant, regardless of the date of the calendar. So let me introduce them to you, but first I'm going to tee up a few things, a high level look at the big picture issues, just a few of them facing the United States Department of Education.
Now, as you likely know, President Donald Trump's pick for Secretary of the Department of Education is Linda McMahon. Best known as the former CEO for the World Wrestling Entertainment Group. Now her proponents say she is well suited for the job to lead the department that oversees 1.6 trillion, that's with a T, in federal student loans.
And meanwhile, the nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association, call down the U. S. Senate to reject her appointment, saying she is unqualified due to a very thin resume in public education. Now, as of today there is no news on when Ms. McMahon's confirmation hearings will begin.
But while all of that happens, it's important to note some of the biggest challenges facing the agency, and there are many of them. Just a few of them include first and foremost, a significant sense of urgency to tackle the declining achievement scores that we see in this country. We know there are concerns about the departments getting pulled into culture wars.
Rural schools are certainly not immune from those culture wars. We are also facing unprecedented educator shortages, and this has been brewing for quite some time. And we are going to be talking about that today in detail. And as you're going to hear from our first guest for the last several decades, rural districts in many parts of the country have had to make significant cuts, merge operations with each other and even shut down entirely.
And we're going to talk about that today as well. And this is because a downward trends in the broader population and, the tolls that it's taking on rural communities. And as someone who travels to rural communities across this country, I can promise you, I have seen this take shape in many places and the impact has taken many forms.
So, helping us connect all of these dots, you know, we're always going to want some experts at the table. Cause I'm no expert on this particular subject. I know a lot of things enough to be dangerous. I have invited Education Week Reporter on Budget and Finance, Mark Lieberman to join me. And after you hear from him, and it really is a super informative conversation I was thankful to Interim Executive Director of the National Rural Education Association, David Ardrey, for laying out challenges, priorities, and some very, quite frankly, sage advocacy advice that really is essential for all of us to hear.
Now. With that said, it's that time when I invite you to tune out that background noise, put yourself in your podcast listening frame of mind, and hear my conversation with Mark Lieberman and David Ardrey. Are you ready? I'm glad you're here. So let's go.
Michelle Rathman: Hey, Mark Lieberman, reporter for Education Week, welcome to the Rural Impact. Thank you for carving out some time to join us today. We're glad you're here. We know there is a lot to talk about on this subject.
Mark Lieberman: That certainly is. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Michelle Rathman: It's my pleasure. You know, Mark I know this from the, the, obviously the rural work that I do, that rural school districts are already entering this new year.
Here we are, recording this podcast at the end of January and they're entering the new year already with financial struggles now. It's very incredibly difficult what we're hearing coming out of D. C. There's a lot of uncertainty. But based on what we're hearing, let's talk a little bit about some of the difficult decisions that, you know, rural schools are going to have to make based on some of the elimination of their funding as a result of the budget cuts.
Mark Lieberman: Yeah, so I, you know, the main thing that's happened so far in the last month or so, there's a federal law called the Secure Rural Schools Act that is typically renewed every other year. And I'll explain in a minute what it does, but the deadline to renew it essentially was at the end of last year.
Obviously, Congress can do whatever it wants at any time, but kind of on the schedule that it was previously on and needed to be done, by the end of December. The Senate passed the law in, I believe, November of last year, but the House did not take it up by the end of its term. And so, it did not pass and will have to be reintroduced in the coming session.
The lawmakers who are behind it, you know, from both parties have said they are planning to do that. And, and bring it to the floor in the coming months, but it's unclear a) whether that'll happen, b) whether it'll succeed and c), you know, how long it will take, even if it does happen.
Michelle Rathman: There's a lot of shuffling on the deck, if you will, right now. And, I wonder if you could just share with our listeners. How this critical funding, you know, what does it provide for rural schools in particular?
Mark Lieberman: Yeah, so kind of actually to go all the way back to understand why this law exists, we have to go to, the Presidential Administration of Teddy Roosevelt. So, more than 100 years ago the establishment of the National Forest System. Congress passed a law that essentially said that timber companies that are generating revenue from that land, were required to give such a quarter of their profits directly to school districts and local governments. You know, with the thinking being a school district that has public land in its borders is not able to raise property tax revenue the same way that a district that is, you know, occupied entirely by, you know, residential and commercial properties.
Michelle Rathman: Other, other revenue streams, yeah.
Mark Lieberman: Exactly. So you know, for a long time that that law worked well, but more recently in the last few decades, timber companies revenue is kind of dried up. And so just to kind of replace that, and I believe the year 2000, Congress passed a law called the Secure Rural Schools Act actually has a longer name.
It's actually not only for schools, but also some of the money goes to local road systems, you know, transportation. But the purpose of the law is essentially to provide a stream of money that supplements local government budgets, school district budgets in these rural areas where forest land is taking up, you know, substantial portion of the potential property tax revenue.
And so, you know, rural schools have come to kind of depend on this money as a component of their budgets. Now, in terms of how significant not having that money is, you know, it varies from place to place based on a number of factors, it's a very complex formula Congress uses to determine how much money each county gets and then the county can distribute the money to schools and also to roads as it sees fit.
So, there's a lot of variation, but there are thousands of school districts that receive at least something from this program. But in some of the more significant cases, where a substantial portion of a district, or maybe an entire district is you know, virtuallyoccupied by you know, public land.Forest land in particular you know, essentially what that means is that there's, you know, a percentage of the district's budget that will go away.
You know, I've spoken to school leaders have talked about, you know, this grant program makes up 5 percent of our budget. So, you hear that number and you would first think, well, 5%, that's not, you know, that's not the worst thing in the world. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's not 95%, right? But, uh, when you think about what's going on with school budgets in general, schools are constantly constrained by limited resources. They're constantly trying to do the most with the least. And so, and this is kind of particularly true in rural areas. And so even a 5 percent cut can be pretty significant.
You know, I've spoken to educator, you know, leaders in, in districts affected by this that have already talked about, you know, potentially having to lay off staff, you know, cut programs. There was one previous time that this law kind of lapsed, in Congress for a year, and it was revived. I think it was about a decade ago, and a Superintendent California told me that as a result of that, they had to kind of defer maintenance on buildings that they were planning to do. Because they needed the kind of remaining money they had for paying staff and, you know, maintaining instruction. And so what ultimately happened was these buildings fell to such disrepair that there ended up being these really substantial mold issues and they had to close the school building, for a year or two.
And so, you know, kind of losing this money has a pretty direct impact. Again, it varies quite a bit from place to place, but I think there's some pretty significant,
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, I was reading, you've written some really good pieces about this. I was reading it. It might mean that a school district wouldn't be able to replace HVAC systems, for example. And so we, we take a look at, you know, even if there's a lapse in funding, the ripple effect from reduced funding can persist for years just like, lack of funding and investments and infrastructure and so forth.
And so to your point, I mean, it might be that the school just doesn't even make code any longer. And, then the implications for children. You know, at the end of the day, we need to make sure that children are learning in a place that's warm, safe, and so forth. Let's talk a little bit about how rural school districts, you know, right now, there's a lot of uncertainty.
News is happening so very, very fast. How are rural school districts, from your conversations, how are they bracing for impacts of President Trump's plans to cut federal funding? And where do you see the biggest impact from these cuts in the rural space?
Mark Lieberman: That's a great question. I mean, I think, you know, right now, a lot of what we know about what the Trump Administration wants to do with funding is a speculation, right? I mean, we can make assumptions and inferences that are pretty concrete and solid based on what his administration did the last time, what they've said they want to do this time, what we've heard from members of Congress on what they want to do broadly in terms of making the government more efficient, cutting spending, you know, at the federal level, in general.
I do think there are some political roadblocks to making substantial cuts to education funding. It is worth saying that, you know, President Trump, the last time he was in office annually proposed substantial decreases for programs like Title I, which lots of rural school districts benefit from.
You know, proposed consolidating other grant programs that the federal government gives out to schools, including some that are specifically geared towards rural schools. And a lot of a lot of those proposals didn't come to pass, you know, Congress ultimately kind of kind of made its own way.
Having said that, there is certainly a reasonable assumption on the part of district leaders right now that there is at least a possibility that they will see a reduction in federal funding in the coming years. Or at the very least a, you know, a flattening of federal funding. You know, it's worth mentioning we're coming off a period where school districts were benefiting from an unprecedented infusion of federal money.
Never before had a school district had so much money coming from federal government. And but the caveat to that was that it was one time money, and it was kind of there was a concrete deadline for when it could be spent. And so districts are sort of now in a situation where they are coming off of having had some extra money.
Spent it on things that, you know, we're productive in various ways, and now don't have that, but also have to have to contend with the possibility that kind of their, their federal share will be reduced. You know, I certainly know district leaders who, whether we're talking about the Secure Rural Schools Act, or just other kind of routine funding for all school districts that rural schools also benefit from, you know, I know lots of districts that are kind of hedging their bets when budgeting for next school year about how much they're going to have knowing that there's a possibility that when they are you know, tally up all the money, they actually have that they're currently budgeting for, you know, they'll have less than they had hoped to spend.
And so, you know, in terms of what, what the impacts are there, you know, I think it's a lot of the same things I mentioned already you know, there are only so many things that a school district can cut or trim or eliminate from its operating budget. You know, vast majority of the school district's operating budget goes to compensation for staff anywhere between 75 and 85 percent of the school district budget goes towards its people.
So, you know, that's where you get into questions like, do we lay people off? Do we consolidate roles? Do we you know, in some of the most extreme cases, close entire school buildings, you know, send all the student,s you know, close the middle school and send all the students to a different middle school?
Michelle Rathman: Which is already happening in some areas where enrollment has not reached a certain threshold, for example.
Mark Lieberman: Well, and I think, and I mean, I think, yeah, the last thing I'll just say is, you know, there's a broader trend that is, that is long predates either Trump Administration. You know, in terms of declining birth rates, in terms of migration out of rural areas, where rural schools in particular have been seeing a decline in enrollment that affects their funding in all kinds of ways.
And so, I think what is coming down the pike from the federal government, potentially in the, in the coming months, we'll sort of exacerbate and sort of pile on top of those, those existing concerns.
Michelle Rathman: Mark, I want to shift to another conversation because I know you cover this as well. And that is about private school choice. I mean, this has been something that I mean, I follow a lot of folks been doing a lot of reading on this. And so, on January 10th, you wrote a piece titled 'Private School Choice Will Keep Expanding in 2025. Here's where and how.'
So you wrote, and I just want to quote this, "elected Republicans in rural areas have traditionally resisted their party's push for private school choice because their constituents don't live near many alternatives to public schools. Uh, more than half of Tennessee's 95 counties, for example, don't have a single private school that could accept education savings accounts if the program expanded statewide according to an analysis by the Tennessean."
So let's talk about that. I mean, Missouri, it's a challenge, Oklahoma, it's a challenge. Where does this leave rural students when we go down this path and there is no choice because there isn't an option?
Mark Lieberman: Yeah, well, it's interesting. So, the basic premise of these programs, private school choice, there's several different varieties of them. There's vouchers, education savings accounts, there's tax credit scholarships. They kind of have different names and slightly different structures, but sort of the can all be kind of collected under the umbrella of allocating public money, you know, state funds to give parents the opportunity to spend on private education.
So you know, there's sort of a number of schools of thought on this. I mean, there's an ongoing debate about the extent to which allocating state money for this purpose cuts into or negatively affects you know, school district budgets. Some would argue that because any student is participating in one of these programs, leaving a public school system you know, is no longer being served by the public school system, then the fact that the school might be getting less money, you know, per pupil to educate that particular student or group of students you know, kind of evens out in the end.
On the other hand, a lot of these programs we've increasingly seen are primarily serving children who were already attending private school prior to getting the state subsidy, which means the state is now introducing a new cost into its finite budget, you know, investing thousands of dollars in sending these children to school, private school, you know, that we're already kind of already going.
So then you kind of get into the real issue, which you mentioned, which is oftentimes the kind of stated impetus for these programs is to give children a wider you know, wider variety of options for, you know, in their families, wide variety of options for where they attend school. You know, alternatives to the traditional public school system.
And yeah, as I wrote in that story, traditionally, that is not really been a selling point for rural lawmakers and their constituents, because a lot of these rural areas don't have any private schools or a very minimal private school presence. I think it's worth saying, too, on the flip side that in many of these rural areas you know, more so than in an urban or suburban context, you know, school district can often be the largest employer in the area.
You know, it's kind of a central gathering place for the community. You know, it serves purposes kind of beyond merely providing instruction for students. So you know, I think there's kind of a different relationship that that people in rural areas tend to have with their public schools.
You see this in developments, like the recent proposal in Connecticut, I'm sorry, Kentucky, rather not Connecticut to you know, there was a ballot initiative there to potentially expand private school choice and it was roundly rejected by you know, I think a majority of voters in every county in the state. All this to say, there remains, despite some of these kind of political obstacles or operational obstacles or funding obstacles there remains a huge enthusiasm among elected Republicans in, in kind of conservative states in particular to continue expanding these programs. You know, since I wrote that story, and again, the story I said, there's a dozen states that are currently contemplating something along these lines.
A few more have joined since I wrote the story and, you know, a couple weeks ago. And so, yeah, I think the question, you know, there's sort of two main funding questions that arise from this one is, you know, every state has a limited supply of resources at its disposal. And so, you know, public school advocates would say, if you're giving this money to private school students who would have been attending these private schools anyway, you know, wouldn't that money be better served going to the public school system?
So that's kind of issue number one. And then issue number two is, you know, most states fund public schools in part based on enrollment. You know, the more students are enrolled in the school district, the more money the school district gets to educate those students. And if indeed there are situations where private school choice programs lead to, you know, students leaving public schools that results in a situation where schools have, public schools have less money to work with, but not necessarily fewer costs.
You know, for example, if you remove five students from a classroom you know, five students in a class of 25 go to a private school for the year instead of, you know, staying in their public school, you don't reduce the salary of the teacher who's in that classroom by the percentage of students who have left, right?
That person is still making the same amount of money. You still have to pay the electricbill. You still have to pay the gas bill.
Michelle Rathman: I was just gonna say, you still have to put the lights on in the day, in the morning, right?
Mark Lieberman: Exactly, and so all of those things are fixed costs that, you know, kind of don't go away just because kind of the number of, of clients, you know, to kind of put it in business terms gone down.
So anyway, all this to say, I mean, this is a both the state level issue, and in the coming months, probably going to be a federal level topic of discussion, too. And I do think it is important to kind of hear from rural lawmakers and rural advocates about the impacts of these policies, because I think they are not always what you would expect based on the political affiliation. You know, there are lots of Republicans in rural areas who have pretty staunch objections to private school choice.
And, you know, you may see that continue to be a barrier in states like Texas, where, you know, that have historically struggled to convince enough rural lawmakers to go along with the program.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, and Mark, the jury is still out. I mean, obviously there's, we have decades to go and in terms of how this benefits students. I mean, how does it benefit our, our reading and math? And I mean, how does it, how does it prepare? I mean, I think we're just not there yet. We just don't have the data.
And I wonder how much appetite there will be to collect the data when these programs take shapes. I wonder if you all are watching that as well. I'm sure you are.
Mark Lieberman: Absolutely, I mean, I think, you know, I've spoken to researchers about this and, you know, there are studies that have been done on kind of earlier iterations of these programs that have shown mixed results. You know, I think it's important to kind of display the full breadth of what we know about these programs, whether it sort of fits a neat narrative or not.
And there are certainly examples of studies that have shown a positive impact on test scores, likelihood of graduating or likelihood of attending college. Even, there's been a couple of studies, one in particular that I'm thinking of that kind of highlighted a linkage between the introduction of kind of more choice options and performance of public school students, you know, the thinking being, if there's more competitive pressure in public schools to, you know, maintain you know, their enrollment their, you know, work harder to ensure that their students are learning.
Well you know, there's lots of caveats and, and you know, arguments to get into in response to findings like that, but I would say more recently, a challenge that has kind of made research tougher on these topics is as you say, A), these programs are changing very fast so what, you know, about a previous version of a voucher program, maybe completely different from what is actually happening in the version of the program that now exists, even in the same state. You also have states, there are some states that do better than others on collecting and publicizing data about you know, how well students in these private school choice programs are learning.
How well students in individual private schools are learning relative to each other. And sort of looking at different measures for, for effectiveness of these programs. You know, in some cases, there seems to be reluctance on the part of politicians to make those kind of data points available.
And then, you know, even when they are available, I think there's a challenge in interpretation. You know one researcher kind of explained this very well to me recently. His point was kind of, you know if you are looking at test scores for a 3rd grader in a public school, and you're comparing it to test scores for a 3rd grader in a private school, and you see a drastic difference between the two, you might draw some conclusions from that.
But part of the premise of private school is that it's kind of operating differently, and it might have a different curriculum or a different emphasis then the traditional public school, and so maybe some of the things that the student in public school is learning in 3rd grade, the student in private school is going to learn in 4th grade.
And so, the fact that they're performing less well on a kind of state test in 3rd grade isn't necessarily a reflection of the school failing to educate them, but, you know, just kind of a difference in how they're, what learning they're being exposed to. All this to say, I think there's, there's quite a bit of unanswered questions, and I would say a trend of resistance to accountability on the part of the, you know, creators of these programs.
Last example I'll give is the Arizona program, the education savings account there is, is the kind of most expansive in terms of the number of students enrolled, all the students in the state are eligible. It's one of the kind of earlier examples of these universal programs that we've seen.
Thousands, you know, tens of thousands of students attend it. Still a relatively small percentage of the overall population, student population in the state. But you know, the Republican legislature there, you know, kind of expanded it pretty quickly. Democratic governor recently released a proposal urging some kind of new accountability measures to be added to the program to essentially, you know, do more reporting on how it's doing, how students are performing and, the Republican majority legislature rejected that proposal.
And so that is the kind of thing we're seeing more often, and it's challenging for people trying to make choices about where to send their students and what opportunities to take advantage of from the, from their states.
And also to journalists like me who want to sort of help you know, parents and, and policymakers have a, you know, more complete understanding of, of what's going on.
Michelle Rathman: There's so much to watch for, because I mean, the next time we talk and I hope that you'll come back, I mean, I think it's really important for us to understand, you know, which students are being left behind as a result of these programs, especially with what we know with you know, a full on erasing of, DEI efforts and so forth impacting classrooms.
Oh, my gosh, that is a whole nother subject for us to talk about.
Mark Lieberman: another podcast, I think.
Michelle Rathman: Another podcast entirely. Well, I'm going to I mean, the invitation is solid Mark. I really do appreciate learning about your work and reading your work. We're going to be following you. Thank you so much for carving out time. We really do appreciate all that you're doing and anything that you've got that, ureflects what's the rural impact of these issues we welcome you to send it our way and come on back.
Mark Lieberman: Oh, I really appreciate that. And thank you for, you know, putting a spotlight on these issues yourself. Uh, it's easy for them to get overlooked in a country as big and complex as ours. So, I appreciate the reminder, frankly, to, to be paying more attention on my end of things.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, absolutely. Not on my watch. We're not going to let these things, I tell folks, these are not light subjects, but we need, and we're coming at it from a policy perspective because all roads to quality of life are indeed paved by policies. So, thank you again. And for the rest of you, do not go away because this special episode is not over.
We'll be right back. With more conversation on the Rural Impact.
Michelle Rathman: Welcome back to the Rural Impact. You know, you've been listening to a conversation about the impact of shifts in policy and exactly what that might mean for rural education. And as promised, there is a lot more to talk about on this subject, which is why it is my pleasure to welcome Mr. David Ardrey, Interim Executive Director of the National Rural Education Association, and who also happens to be very busy with his other role as the Executive Director of the Association of Illinois Rural and Small Schools, in my neck of the woods, my state I should say.
David, welcome to The Rural Impact. We are so grateful that you're here with us today.
David Ardrey: Michelle, thanks for having me today. Look forward to our conversation.
Michelle Rathman: Oh my gosh, I do too, because you know, as our listeners know, we are recording this today, the second part of this episode on the 27th of January, and news is happening fast and slow, a little bit where this is concerned. So David, let's just start here. We just finished a conversation with Education Week Reporter, Mark Lieberman.
And he talked about his reporting on the potential cuts to the Department of Education. We've been hearing a lot about that and what exactly, lesser known, is what that might mean for America's rural schools and the impact on students, educators, and communities, because all of these things are connected.
So again, let's start there, David. Share with our listeners. What is the National Rural Education Association keeping their eyes on where these issues are concerned?
David Ardrey: Yeah, thanks, Michelle, for that kind of introduction to Mark's work. I follow his work, so I've had a chance to look at some of the information that he's sharing right now, right in line with our concerns and right in line with things that we've been following for decades, honestly.
But on the funding side, I think it's fair for people to understand that, you know, first and foremost, and especially in rural districts that much of the funding that supports schools come from local funds. They come from local tax dollars to support districts and schools. Uh, and a significant amount of that is from the local funds, but that doesn't negate the need or the support of the federal government. And, and I think what's interesting and even interesting within Mark's article.The concern is the cuts.
My concern is also the cuts that have been occurring or have existed for decades, honestly, and so let's dig into one of those areas. You know, Mark talked about the funds around certain Title support and including one of those would be the IDEA fund. So Individuals with Disabilities Act.
Interestingly, that pot of federal money is designed to be funded at 40 percent to be full funding, which again, is kind of a weird dichotomy to think, okay, 40 percent means 100 percent according to the federal government.
Michelle Rathman: Mm hmm.
David Ardrey: And they have never funded that program above 14%. And so let's talk about what that does to a local school.
A local school has a budget. That budget requires them to meet certain both state and federal mandates and requirements. We've, in Illinois, we've gone through an evidence-based funding reform to try to put more local money into the districts who are below the line on equitable funding. Yet, at the end of the day, a superintendent looks at his budget and says, 'Man, I'm in better shape than I was, but now I have to make up that money in the IDEA funding to support students with disabilities and special needs.
So it's, it's hard for folks to understand sometimes this rhetoric around the federal government's going to cut funding. Well, they would have to increase funding in many areas to actually cut funding.
And so our advocacy work is really around what's your commitment? What's your priorities? What have you said you would commit to do on behalf of education? And let's start there. And then if we want to talk about cuts, fine, but if you're cutting from a vantage point of a 40 percent funding line that only pays 14, and you're going to cut more.
Michelle Rathman: still way behind.
David Ardrey: You're still way behind.
So, so I think you know, we're going to watch very closely what's going to happen in terms of those funding discussions. You know, districts federal money is somewhere between 8 and 14 percent of school districts funds. Depending on the district, though, it could be as little as two or 3 percent and as high, it could be as high as 14 percent of their budget.
So it's really challenging to, you know, make across the board comparisons, if you will, without understanding the dynamic of that budget.
Michelle Rathman: David, let me ask you this before we move on because, you know, we know that local school districts have to make up for the lack of the funding where, as you said, it should be at 40%. It's at 14%. For school districts that have been seeing a decline in enrollment, not as many local tax base to tap into, Mark talked a little bit about timber taxes for example.
I happen to work in communities where timber taxes up in the Pacific Northwest are not what they used to be, and it's different in other parts of the country. So, where are school districts making up for these deficits and the funding that they need to accommodate?And it's not, I, I think maybe accommodate may be too simple of a term, which is to, as you said, be in compliance with the mandates.
And of course, making sure that the student population receives the resources that they need. Where does it come from?
David Ardrey: Yeah, so it's, I mean, it becomes a very complex, issue for schools. We think about schools as an educational entity. Superintendents think about it as a business. They have a multi-million dollar business to try to figure out how to run and then how they run that has the complexities of state and federal dollars.
You know, I think it's, it behooves people to understand that in my view, we'll never solve the funding disparities or inequities, especially in our rural districts because of the model of property tax funding. So, schools are based on property values and property taxes. Many of those communities and small communities and districts are capped on what they can do. And the model is just, it's not a sustainable, equitable model across the board.
If you live in an affluent area, rural or urban. If you are affluent and your home prices are significant, your tax values are high, schools see pretty decent funding from that model. You know, and the other challenge is that there isn't anywhere else to go look for money. So, you have simply those tax dollars, the federal money, and then you have to start to look, where do I cut?
Michelle Rathman: Philanthropy is another side of potential, but that's something that you chase constantly grants and so forth.
David Ardrey: it is. And, and honestly, generational wealth in our rural communities. A lot of that wealth is now transitioning out of the rural community that it existed in because parents and grandparents pass away. The children have moved on. We all hope for a better life for our kids, and maybe our kids don't stay in that rural community.
So now that general generational wealth has moved with them and it doesn't necessarily stay in the community. I think the other challenge is, and, and I refer to this, and I noticed in Mark's piece and some of the work you've done, we talk about poverty. I talk about poverty from an educational poverty and it has multiple layers to it.
And school funding is just the beginning of that educational inequity of poverty for a child. There's some other layers that you and I can get to. But at the end of the day, districts are really saddled with making cuts changing the availability of programming not including certain things they would like to, but really also trying to meet the mandates whatever state level mandates there are, which are different for every state.
Michelle Rathman: State to state. Yes.
David Ardrey: They still exist and, and there's a list of them that they're required by law, by their state education office to meet the mandate and so that's presented a significant challenge as well.
Michelle Rathman: Yes. Okay. Oh, my goodness. So let's move a lot on a little bit because I know that they and I visited this with the Former Executive Director, that the 2022-2027 NREA Rural Research Agenda. Let's talk a little bit about that, because I know that, you know, there, there are some impacts of potentially how the policies might alter the policy and funding piece of your agenda, specifically around.
I just want to cover these things, achieving funding formula equity. You know, this past weekend, we've heard a lot of stuff out in the news about kind of eliminating the term equity, if you will, from federal policy, student racial and linguistic demographics, impacts of school consolidation, rural educator salary equity, that might be one of those places where you all have to look at and say, where do we make cuts?
And of course, early childhood education access and system building. So, what in your estimation, if you, if you can tell us a little bit about how, if at all, you might see some shifts in your research and policy agenda based on some of what we anticipate coming out of D.C., or does that impact it at all?
I'm just curious.
David Ardrey: I'll just give you an overview of what we see as the kind of responsibility, if you will, of that research arm of NREA. We're very fortunate to have a very broad based very diverse scope of researchers who live in rural, live and operate in rural, and probably in many cases were educated in rural, both rural K-12 and rural university settings.
One of the biggest challenges say, 20 years ago, most of the research was done about rural by people who didn't live or ever go in a rural space. So today's research is, is really about the place, about the space that they all grew up in, lived in, worked in. I think for us, what we'll do is we'll trust our researchers to offer information to us that says, 'Hey, these seem to be the direction or the trends of topics that we probably need to pay attention to.'
We'll work with our legislative committee to say. 'What are the concerns we have?' So, for example, you mentioned the for schools, the Secure Rural Schools Act. We pushed Congress before the end of the session to increase that funding and the speaker wouldn't even bring it to the table for a vote. And we had good bipartisan support.
We have a strong bipartisan advocate in California who has really led the charge for schools or for Secure Rural Schools Act. Those funds haven't changed in, in decades in terms of the support. And in most cases, we've lost funds from that secure rural school.
So do we need to do more research?Do we need more data to back up the information to help the General Assembly, the legislators, the senators, help them understand the value of those programs? And I think for us on the legislative side, weā€™ll take the lead with our researchers to then look at those areas that we're going to spend some of our, some of our capital, if you will, both financially and human capital.
To begin to have that dialogue about what our needs are you know, and I mentioned earlier, and you mentioned in this list of items, I mentioned earlier this notion behind kind of rural poverty.
Michelle Rathman: Yes.
David Ardrey: So, for me, education poverty. We, in many situations, our rural communities reside in rural education poverty, meaning we have low funding.
So programs and services are less than counterparts. I know you mentioned the word equity and I heard that chatter about, you know, let's remove equity from the conversation. Okay. Let's do that. I'll tell you what, let's do that because I focus on priority. What's the priority, not only in this country, but in our states to educate people?
My argument is that if we have a solid education system, education will help move people from poverty. We've tried everything else. We've thrown money at human resource or human source programs. We've thrown money at all kinds of programs, but we still have education as an underfunded model. So what's the priority of education?
The other piece of it, and it all trickles down. So, the funding model for schools cause us to not have enough money to support that district that money then equates to low salaries. I thought it was interesting in a podcast that you did with I think Jeff Strohl what one of your guests and
Michelle Rathman: From, I just want to tell our guests for the Center of Workforce and Education and it was probably the Big Townsā€¦
David Ardrey: it was
Michelle Rathman: Yes.
David Ardrey: Yeah, and you know, one of the things that's interesting, he mentioned that there was a bottom threshold being developed under this good jobs work economic independence. What was intriguing to me is the bottom threshold for salary was $43,000 and the medium was $60,000. Most states currently are using $40,000 as a base minimum for a teacher.
So, I did some research years ago around the living wage concept. And we were changing the minimum wage to what we call the living wage. And that number was about $18-$20 an hour, which equated to about $39,000 average salaries as a living wage, baseline living wage. And so J. P. Morgan study showed threshold at about $43k.
So we're not even paying our teachers. We're not starting our teachers at a baseline level salary of a living wage or a low threshold on the economic dependence independence scale, if you will. So teacher salaries are impacted by that. And that's it's very significant. And then you look at childhood hunger and rural poverty.
Michelle Rathman: to talk to you about that as well. I mean, because, I mean, we, this is not, we're not, this is not, you know, speculation. This is reality. Children can learn their best when they have food in their bellies, good nutritious food. And one of the things I did want to talk to you about David was the fact that we know that as a part of this.
Because you know, we say all roads to quality of life are paved by policy, and all these things are connected. So, when we start talking about potential cuts to the school -based nutrition and summer -based nutrition programs because so many rural children, as do urban children, receive sometimes their only full meals a day.
I am a parent of an educator, so I know this, from those school based meal programs, so let's talk about that for a moment. How, you know, what is going to be the impact as you see it, on our rural children should there be cuts within the USDA, then of course impact are rural students where their nutritious meals are coming from breakfast and lunch.
David Ardrey: Well, there's no doubt your comment about being interconnected is critical, and I'm gonna, I'll also tie a rural health care, a rural health care comment into this food insecurity. So, if you think, I think back to, 2020 and the pandemic. At one point, if districts weren't supplying meals through a variety of delivery sources, but the reality was during the pandemic, many, many children went without the support of their school for breakfast, lunch and late snacks or carry home packet, you know, not dinner, but at least to get them through.
I'll tie something to that. Many children went without baseline health care for that entire time they were away from their school because they didn't see their school nurse, which was their only form of health care. And they probably didn't see their dental care because that portable dental program that came to their school was their form of dental care.
So they lost nutrition, health and dental care all in one for hundreds of days, if you will. But go back to the food. I mean, my greatest concern and I've spent a lot of time in rural districts myself personally is that if we lose funding in those areas, that support children who can't fend for themselves, in any other way than to have some supports.
That's going to be a significant, just a holistic loss to the children of our communities. You know, parents and adults, I mean, everybody needs help sometimes. Everybody needs a hand to help them up occasionally and support them. But adults in some capacity could figure out, 'Hey, I need to get out and do something to provide for my family.'
Children are at the mercy of their parents and their schools for support, and that will be an area we'll watch really closely. You know, you and I are both from Illinois. I'm downstate as far south as you could possibly get. And it's always intriguing me to drive to one of my districts and pass thousands of acres of productive farmland to produce food, and think that we have a food insecurity problem in our state or in this country, period, because of the amount of food we produce every single day. Illinois, being a huge food producer in this country.
So, it's really concerning and we will have to target those areas and be very specific in looking at what's happening. What's the policy plan? What's the administration thinking in this area? And then honestly, not get caught up in chasing the ball or running down the rabbit hole to see where they're headed is stay focused on that issue at that point.
Michelle Rathman: I appreciate that. David, you said it best. It's priorities. Do you know, we prioritize that which we value. A couple of other things I want to touch on with you really quick is, you know, and it is, I guess, tied very much to salary and benefits. Let's talk about educator shortages. We know that in this country, we are looking seriously head on at health care workforce shortages, and this is really no different from what I understand.
We've got some educator shortages and as the more rural you get, the more challenging it can be. So, let's talk about some of the, kind of the current situation and what are your most immediate needs and some of your concerns moving forward, that we can take with us. And because my next question after that's going to be about advocacy and how we advocate to make sure we have things to change those conditions.
David Ardrey: Yeah, absolutely. So, again, on that idea around education poverty, that's number four, if you will and it's tied or it's number three tied to number two teacher salaries. So we have had an educator shortage in rural districts for a number of years. Well, before the world started realize there was an employment shortage in this country.
People to work in all sectors of all jobs. In Illinois, in about 2014, I started standing on the stump talking about our shortages. Nobody would listen. It's just a small rural district. It only two teachers. But if you're in a district that has 20 educators and you have four people out of your district who aren't, you don't have anybody to fill that slot.
You're talking 25 percent of your staff is out right away. And gets difficult to fill those. No doubt teacher salaries are directly tied to the shortage. Two reasons. One, simply $40, 000 minimum shortly after we really pushed minimum wage in Illinois, a position at Casey's, which is a small
Michelle Rathman: Gas station
David Ardrey: Small store, those positions were offering salaries, bonuses and, and health care at a higher rate than an entry level teacher. That teacher said, 'I can go there and work 40 hours a week. I never have to take a phone call from a parent. I never have to run into a child or a parent in the grocery store and be accosted over something that happened, and it changes my mental health.'
And so obviously working conditions for teachers, concerns about their safety, especially pandemic and early post pandemic. I think things have improved and people have moved on, but it's a tough profession and it's a profession that, in our rural districts and even our urban partners, our friends in urban places where teacher salaries are low, you know, it's a tough job to ask somebody to come in and make the lowest wage of any of their peers and their colleagues.
And so, you know, and then lastly, recruiting, in Southern Illinois, much like probably up in Northern Illinois area, you might be only 10 miles or 15 miles from the next district who might be able to offer you $5,000-$10,000 more if you would leave the district you're in. And so it's that sheep stealing.
It's the old Baptist Church, the old sheep stealing. And, and you can't blame people for improving their own personal circumstance. And then lastly, it is the idea around changing, the retirement ages related to educators within a pension system, and moving that number to 70 plus and some in Illinois, we've moved that number to 70 plus.
And so, you know, people coming out of college thinking about, okay, I'm going to start teaching at 25 to get to 70. I've got to teach 45 years or 50 to get to my pension, you know, and I'm going to be, you know, 80 years old, 78 years old before I walk out of a classroom teaching third graders. And so it changes the dynamic of what their interest is in the employment.
Michelle Rathman: Yes, and I think about all the, all the cash, all the money they gotta pull out of their own pockets just to make sure their classrooms have the other things that they would love to have. Oh my gosh. All right. Before we leave, David, I'm always going to ask this question before we end every episode, which is this, you know, for, I am now I have six grandchildren, all right.
So my children, I, I very happily, you know, paid my taxes into the local school system and so forth, but for those who do not believe that education is something that they have, K through 12 education, let's say, is something that they should have on their radar screen. But at the end of the day, each of us has a role and a responsibility, I believe, I'm not preaching to anybody in a soapbox here, but tell us from your perspective, how best can our listeners advocate in support of ensuring rural schools have what they need to thrive?
And it goes beyond cash, but that's important, those resources. So what it's in your advocates toolkit when we are communicating with our state, our county, our federal lawmakers, what say you?
David Ardrey: I think your last comment is what I'll focus on. And we've learned some valuable lessons over the last, two administrations. First and foremost, schools always talk about local control, local support. What we have learned in our advocacy work is that start local. Make sure that your local, political folks, make sure your statewide representatives, representatives and senators make sure they understand the value of public education, the value of the public school and in many rural school, rural communities, the school is the largest employer and maybe the largest economic engine that supports other aspects.
And you can drive anywhere you want in Illinois on a two-lane state highway, and you can find old, empty school buildings and little towns that don't exist anymore. And my guess is we could drive many states in this country, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, and pick a state, and you're going to see some old buildings not being used.
And so folks think, well, yeah, that's great. That's state level at the federal level, our colleagues, at the federal level have told us time and time again now, make sure that your local offices of your representatives and your senators understand your needs. It's fine to come to DC and advocate and spend the day in the, in the Capitol and go to their offices.
But at the end of the day, make sure their staffers, make sure their education staffer understands what you're concerned about, what your needs are, and then work that system to make sure the folks in D. C. are hearing that message. And then for us, nationally, it will be paying attention to both sides, both sides of the aisle.
And the other side on the executive branch to understand, where are they headed? What are they thinking? And then for me personally, my advocacy on behalf of NREA, I'm just not going to run down the rabbit hole. I'm going to stay very focused on specific issues. I'm not going to get distracted from it. I'm not going to chase something because it sounds like the next best thing.
Uh, I'm gonna stay really focused on things like we talked about IDEA, Secure Rural Schools, school funding, teacher shortages. Those things. have been around for a while. They don't, we're not seemingly fixing them right now. And I'm going to focus on, let's make education the priority in this country, which will begin to support some of the other ills that exist within our country, honestly, and poverty and pathways to prison and a number of things will start to, I believe.
I truly believe we'll start to improve if we prioritize education. We didn't mention it, but early, early childhood, critical, public early childhood, public education supporting early childhood might be the single greatest thing we could do right now and especially in our rural communities.
Michelle Rathman: David, that's a great point. We are going to do a whole series just on the kind of the bookends are major rural childcare, early child development, which is different than childcare, early child development. And then on the other side of things, that's those are great points. And I appreciate what you said.
Don't go down any rabbit holes. Nothing ends well. And please, for all of our listeners, you know, check your facts, make sure that the information that you are sharing with others, you know, we had an entire episode focused on disinformation and there's a difference between misinformation and disinformation.
So, check your facts before you share information and when you are showing up, you know, to support your local school, I always say, come with a productive mindset versus a personal agenda. And I think things can go, a little bit better, if you will. That's the hope anyway.
Oh my goodness, David, we are so appreciative again. I know you're in, you're in an interim position right now, but we are so grateful to have you here, you're welcome to come back, because we're going to be following these developments coming out of the Department of Education, because while the local components matter a great deal, these are important as well.
Again, you're invited to come back when you've got news or information that you think is important for us with this regard, and we wish you all the very best and thanks for all the great work that you're doing.
David Ardrey: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Michelle, for having us today and we would be happy to come back and continue the conversation if you will.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, we would love that.
Okay now for the rest of you, once again a heartfelt thanks for carving out time to join us for another episode that we know of course, we say it all the time. These are not light subjects. They're not meant to be, but nonetheless, we certainly hope that you've heard some things here today that have enlightened you and give you some food for thought about making those important connections between policy and rural education and with that quality of life for yourself and your own community.
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We appreciate that too. We thank you all for your generosity. It helps us keep these conversations coming your way. Real quick thanks to Brea Corsaro and Sarah Staub for all they do to keep the show running behind the scenes. Goodness knows I need that. And finally stay tuned because next week I am heading out to our nation's capital to record several conversations from the National Association of Community Health Center Legislative Meeting.
And as always, one of my favorite events of the year that makes me a policy geek, the National Rural Health Association Policy Institute, plus a few really important surprise guests. So, I cannot wait for you to join us for that. Until we're together again, I ask you this all the time, please take good care of yourself and those around you, practice compassion and kindness and see what the impact you can make with those good intentions.
We'll see you again on a new episode of The Rural Impact.