6: A Rural Call to Action

Cultivating Rural Education is a guide to help state leaders (from state government and state-level organizations and associations) choose and use support strategies that focus on the people who make rural education happen—rural educators, rural learners, and the rural community members for whom local schools are often vital community centers. Given this, three of the chapters—Strong Rural Educators, Strong Rural Learners, and Strong Rural Communities—describe the roles of people who are essential to rural education. But before encouraging state strategists to consider these three groups of rural stakeholders, we offer a chapter devoted to helping readers gain a Clear View of Rural Education so they can begin to understand how varied and complex rural places and people are.