Report: Rural Pupils More Likely to Be in Special Education

Children in rural America are 60 percent more likely than their nonrural peers to be placed in special education programs in kindergarten, according to an analysis of 22,000 pupils that was sponsored by a research center at Mississippi State University.

There are also wide disparities in school readiness when rural children are evaluated by race, according to the report from the university’s National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives. About 8 percent of rural black children were proficient at identifying the beginning sounds of words, compared with 22 percent of nonrural black children. About 26 percent of rural white children had the letter-sound skill, compared with 40 percent of nonrural white children.

Early-education programs based in centers also appeared to be less available to rural children, compared with children in more densely populated areas. According to the analysis, 35 percent of rural white children and 14 percent of rural black children attended an early-education program in the year before kindergarten, compared with 37 percent of nonrural black children and 54...