National Rural Research Rally

The National Rural Education Association is the voice of all rural schools and communities across the United States. For more than a century, NREA has been the trusted advocate for every rural learner, educator, and community — finding resources, shaping legislation, and lifting up the evidence that proves what rural schools can do. This initiative extends that advocacy into rigorous, field-derived research that is co-authored with the educators it serves.

If you're here, you likely share our deep commitment to the vitality of rural America — whether you're an entrepreneur bringing solutions to underserved communities, a research organization seeking answers that catalyze data-driven impact, or a philanthropic leader hunting for better ways to align resources with missions that truly restructure lives. The rural educational landscape is rich with potential, and the challenges within it reveal distinct opportunities to scale innovations that honor the spirit of rural America and its foundational industries.

This alliance builds on multiple bodies of foundational rural evidence — including the COVID-era work of Dr. Kimberly Bonniksen as Principal Investigator for the Small School Districts Association COVID Climb movement, which documented an 81% student engagement rate and a transition to distance learning in 5.3 days, far outpacing urban counterparts. Findings like these prove that small and rural schools are adaptable, crisis-resilient innovation proving groundsfor scalable solutions.

The So God Made A School research framework is the shared methodology behind this work — a way to evaluate and implement new programs and technologies while eliminating bureaucracy, supplying sufficient resources, and giving leaders the creative license to accomplish their missions more autonomously. It is designed to preserve rural institutional knowledge and publish it through NREA's national network.

Our Great Heroes — the resilient rural communities, families, educators, and students — are, in the words of Dr. Melissa Sadorf, Executive Director of the National Rural Education Association, "highly intelligent, innovative, hard-working, and dedicated" leaders actively seeking solutions to preserve the American small-town way of life. Together, we can ensure they have the Essential Guides and New Paths they need for lasting success, in service of NREA's vision: strong rural schools and communities where education is the catalyst for resilience, opportunity, and success.

The NREA LEGENDS National Rural Research Rally begins on a Foundation already laid by the National Rural Education Association's Rural Research Advisory Committee — a fellowship of field scholars chaired by Dr. Pam Buffington of EDC and drawn from Montana State, Mississippi State, West Virginia University, Ohio University, Utah State, the University of Maine, East Carolina University, Penn State, SRI, Claremont Graduate University, Indiana Wesleyan, and Boise State University. Their work is the definition of field-derived inquiry: research rooted in rural realities, not imposed upon them.

That legacy is codified in the NREA Rural Research Agenda 2022–2027, a five-year research path shaped by the Research and Higher Education Committee alongside the rural stakeholders who live the agenda every day. It exists to illuminate innovative rural practices, name the challenges rural communities face, and build upon the strengths of rural people and places. The Rally extends that path — accelerating each sponsored research sprint, the September NREA-approved discovery survey, and every publication through the Kairos AI Strategic Intelligence Agent, so that agenda priorities become published evidence at the speed of need.

As Dr. Melissa Sadorf, Executive Director of the National Rural Education Association, reminds us, the people leading rural communities and schools are “highly intelligent, innovative, hard-working, and dedicated.” The Rally exists to ensure that reputation is matched by a record — turning the agenda's priorities into peer-quality, field-derived research carried through NREA's national channels to the policymakers, funders, and educators who can act on it.