Many small, rural communities have lost their schools because of consolidation. Not only did this turn out to be educationally counter-productive, but it also weakened the communities. Most states have now enacted charter school legislation, frequently used to re-establish schools in small communities. These schools often receive little support from their districts because of the inherently adversarial nature of the chartering process, typically receiving smaller per pupil allocations than traditional schools. Teachers in small, rural, and remote communities are geographically isolated and, because of the lack of financial resources, have little opportunity to travel for professional development.

The Rural Schools Network (RSN) was formed to reduce isolation, share instructional resources, and regain economies of scale to increase student achievement. Since 2003, under Dr. Betts’ guidance, RSN has grown to include seventeen high-performing schools in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. The Network raises funds for joint activities, sponsors twice yearly conferences for students and teachers, supports collaborative service learning projects, such s assisting hurricane Katrina damaged schools in Slidell, LA and Pearlington, MS, and academic competitions; also, workshops on governance, technology, facilities planning, accountability, and other topics.

With the advent of widely available broadband services, blogs, wikis, VoIP, and other computer-facilitated communication tools, rural schools no longer need to be isolated. To overcome the barriers of distance, RSN has created its own Internet-based classroom for shared instruction and telecollaboration and provides free, refurbished computers to member schools and families of students who do not have computers in their homes through the Computers for Kids Foundation of which Dr. Betts was the founding Executive Director.