Preparing Teachers for Rural Schools.

Abstract

Evidence continues to mount indicating that rural/small schools face educational challenges not generalizable to their urban counterparts. This article discusses the apparent neglectof rural schools and identifies some of the problems commonly associated with teaching in rural communities. The authors advance the need for preservice/inservice programs for rural teachers and suggest program components that may improve teacher competencies. The problems facing teachers in our nation's rural schools, for the most part, have been neglected. Politi-cians and professional educators have focused their at-tention toward urban education, leaving many to assume that all is well in the schools of rural America. The seem-ing urgency of such "urban " problems as busing, low achievement test scores, school violence and vandalism, and teacher turnover have repeatedly captured political and professional audiences leaving the dilemmas facing rural educators all but forgotten. Parks and Sher [6] at-tribute this apparent neglect to the perceived lack of