Rural School and Community Trust creates Rural Education Finance Center. (RE: Development).

The Washington-based Rural School and Community Trust (RSCT) (www.ruralchallengepolicy.org) has established the Rural Education Finance Center (www.ruraledu.org) in Raleigh, North Carolina to provide services to rural groups across the nation that are working to improve funding for rural schools

According to the RSCT, rural schools throughout the U.S. are threatened by three primary forces: an inadequate local tax base from which to build and support schools; resistance to paying local property taxes; and policy environments that treat rural schools as a burden on economically wealthier areas.

Addressing these challenges, the new Center aims to:

* Teach rural people and organizations how to be effective advocates on behalf of public schools in their communities;

* Sponsor scholarly research on school finance issues that are critical to rural schools;

* Identify and promote best practices and good fiscal management for rural schools;

* Provide legal support on current legal issues involving school finance systems;

* Monitor and track policy developments affecting rural school finance nationwide; and

* Improve understanding of rural issues among the general public and the news media.

"School finance is one of the most critical policy issues facing rural schools, and yet rural people are largely absent from public debate on the subject," said RSCT president Rachel Tompkins. "The Rural Education Finance Center will draw more attention to the problems, build an informed constituency for change, and help forge solutions that provide rural schoolchildren with greater equity."

The Rural School and Community Trust is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to improving community life by strengthening relationships between rural schools and communities and engaging students in community-based public work. Founded as the Annenberg Rural Challenge in 1995, the RSCT today works with more than 700 rural elementary and secondary schools in 35 states.