They are demographically diverse and scattered throughout each state. Tompkins hopes the report and subsequent annual reports will raise policy makers' awareness of rural school issues. The Need for Every State to Take Action on Rural Education. Nearly one in five rural children lives below the poverty level. Rural America is as diverse as urban America.
Rural schools make up the largest proportion of public schools.
They are Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Dakota, and South Dakota. It often surprises people to learn that 244 of the 250 poorest counties in this country are rural. We hear so much about inner-city poverty. The report points out that rural America is far poorer than metropolitan areas and that nearly one in four U.S. schoolchildren attends school in a rural area. The unique problems rural schools face go largely unnoticed in the national debate over the direction of the education, however.