Although many people generally associate high rates of student dropout, closings and poverty with urban schools, the same problems are faced by institutions in more rural areas.
A series of articles in the Fall 2010 issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine reports that in some of the poorest areas of the country, the rate of poverty matches that faced by city schools.
Magazine director Maureen Costello said that ignorance about rural facilities is widespread.
"No one - not even the federal government - has a single definition for what constitutes 'rural.' But these schools are facing many of the same challenges long associated with urban schools," she said.
Some areas of the country with extremely low socioeconomic status - particularly regions of South Carolina - have a student dropout rate that hovers around the 50 percent mark. Many schools in these states have had to close due to shrinking budgets.
The magazine, which focuses on diversity issues in education, has also offered a collection of maps and charts that illustrate the statistical data associated with rural schools in America. Costello hopes that this information will help inform educators and policy makers about the true state of education in these remote regions of the country.
