According to the definition that a rural school district is one in which 75% or more of the population lives outside Standard Metropolitan Areas or in which student density is equal to or less than 10 pupils per square miles, 36 or 65% of West Virginia's 55 counties are classified as rural. State school policies do not specifically recognize the…

This paper examines issues in rural education related to aims, curriculum, and finance. It questions the notion that educational restructuring is necessary for the purpose of improving economic competitiveness. Wigginton, a rural educator, proposes that the aims of education should be: (1) to provide a firm grounding in the basic skills; (2) to…

A review of research yields nine conclusions concerning mathematics achievement among rural and urban students. Among them are that currently a national rural vs. non-rural mathematics achievement gap does not exist; at the state level, a rural vs. non-rural achievement gap exists in 40 percent of the states, and that gap is evenly split between…