We examined student reading achievement in rural and non-rural school districts in Texas. Our research questions probed the improvement in student performance over time, differences in the number of students achieving at different performance levels, and the impact of district-level characteristics on reading achievement. Through quantitative analyses of district-level aggregated data, we compared student growth trajectories over three years. We employed growth hierarchical linear modelling to explore to what extent time, school location, and their interaction impacted student outcomes, as measured by the state reading test. We found that both rural and non-rural students improved in all three performance levels. Location differences were only found in the higher performance levels. We further added 11 district-level factors that might influence student reading performance into the model. The percentages of at-risk and economically disadvantaged students, student mobility rate, and teacher turnover rate had a statistically significant negative impact for all reading levels.