MISSOULA -- Adding fancy technology and building impressive libraries might help Montana's rural schools provide a better education for their students, but improving K-12 education in the state's smallest and poorest schools also rests in the hands of passionate, qualified teachers who want to live and work in rural Montana.

The problem, however, is that people who have the greatest stake in rural Montana also live there, and don't necessarily have the education they need to work as certified teachers, or don't have the financial resources to pursue those dreams.

Two University of Montana education professors believe they have a solution. More important, they have the backing of the U.S. Department of Education that will help put their plan into action.

The federal agency recently awarded a three-year, $3 million grant to UM professors Jan La Bonty and Marian McKenna to help boost the quality of teacher education in Montana's reservation schools.

What is called Project LETTERS, which stands for Literacy Education and Teacher Training for Excellent Reservation Schools, is at its core a statewide scholarship program for people motivated to teach in rural Montana.

"People who come from reservations are more likely to succeed teaching on reservations,'' La Bonty said. "And we really want to support that.''

"These are isolated rural communities. People on the reservations have said that they do get qualified teachers, but those teachers haven't lived in rural places before and leave, so there is a lot of turnover at these schools,'' she said. "Geography enters into this big time in terms of what a teacher can handle. We want to help change those patterns of school failure by supporting and encouraging the people who don't have a romanticized notion of small-town life or what it is like living on the reservation.''

The grant aims to recruit and solicit students who are currently attending tribal colleges and are interested in transferring to UM to get a four-year education degree, as well as people who are working on reservations as teacher aides or as other paraprofessionals, but don't have the money to pursue a four-year degree.

The grant also funds five UM student teachers who are interested in a one-semester scholarship that would help pay for a semester of teaching on a reservation.

Another aspect of the grant will focus on helping to fulfill the state's constitutionally required Indian Education For All Act. The goal is to design a pilot curriculum, with advice and collaboration of Missoula-area reservation teachers, members of the community and the grant's advisory board of tribal members, La Bonty said.

Missoula-area reservation teachers will also mentor students in Project LETTERS.

About 85 percent of the grant will help students pay for UM tuition and books, La Bonty said, and she expects the grant will benefit about 55 students.

The maximum amount students will receive is $5,000 per semester, which will only last as long as the three-year grant.