Is this the way to transform struggling rural schools?

As U.S. Secretary of Education in the 1990s and early 2000s, and previously as Governor of South Carolina for eight years, Richard Riley had a front-row seat for witnessing the impact of under-funded and under-resourced rural schools. In the Hechinger Report, Riley pens an article about the New Tech (project-based learning) model and how its presence in two high-poverty, South Carolina schools is proving efficacious. Said Riley, who serves on the New Tech Network’s board of advisers, “Hard-fought success is happening in these rural South Carolina schools that struggled for decades with low achievement. I applaud the commitment of these communities to start — and sustain — meaningful changes that benefit all students.”

Richard Riley serves as Advisory Board chair of the Richard W. Riley Institute of Government, Politics and Public Leadership at Furman University. Riley earned his bachelor’s degree, cum laude, in political science from Furman in 1954 and received a J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1959. In 2008, Riley was named one of the Top 10 Cabinet Members of the 20th Century by Time magazine.