Alan Richard

Alan Richard
Chair
Rural School and Community Trust

Alan Richard is a national education writer who has spent much of his career focusing on the South and rural America. Now based in Atlanta, he covered education in the South as a journalist for Education Week and for newspapers in his native South Carolina. He twice won first prize in the National Awards for Education Reporting from the Education Writers Association. He's also served as the director of communications for the nonpartisan Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta. The author of Accelerating the Pace: The Future of Education in the American South, a 2018 report from the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education and similar groups in neighboring states, he has been published by The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, The Nation, the Hechinger Report and others. He serves on the national board of the nonprofit Rural School and Community Trust, and until recently was longtime chair of the Rural Trust board. He'll discuss rural education in Georgia, how the state stacks up nationally, and possible solutions to the state's challenges in education.