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Good points but US Census Data Shows that the people in most small towns in America that are not connected to a large metro area are in fact less educated and likely to be poor economically. But I agree the residents have their own form of smarts.
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Originally Posted by AnonChick
I've been through towns like the OP is talking about. It seems to me, that unless a kid is leaving the town, he has no -reason- to have a higher education. Townies in rural areas like that don't -need- to get a Masters Degree, unless it's in agriculture or animal husbandry. They have different types of priorities. They, meaning, the ones who intend to stay in the rural town and not seek their future elsewhere. Not they, meaning everyone who is raised in the town. The ones who stay, don't need the higher education. Not only do they not need it, but their time is needed to maintain what they have, which usually means going to work instead of going to college - not after it, not in addition to it.
It doesn't make them less intelligent, but it does shift their education to things more practical and geared to their lifestyle. So "intellectuals" who have Liberal Arts degrees and went to work in big offices in the city might not see that these people are intelligent, but then, those intellectuals wouldn't know the first thing about the proper nitrogen content of soil for raising corn, or how best to get rid of aphids off tomato plants, or why their dappled gelding keeps lowering his neck when he runs.
Rural people aren't less smart, or less intelligent - or even less educated, necessarily. They're just smart, intelligent, and educated in things us suburban and urban people are totally ignorant about, because we don't have a particular need to know about those things, since we don't live in that part of our country and only drive past their towns and wonder if they're educated
I will comment on the rural super small town/school near me.
town......pop 400
Although the short mainstreet is still neat, it has changed from when I moved nearby 32 years ago.
The cafe is closed
One feed mill is closed
What is open is one liquor store/bar, one feed mill, one hardware store, one gas station/convenience store, one grocery store, one auto repair/car sales
We are fortunate that there is a bigger city ( 70,000 pop) asbout 35 miles away.
School.........K-12 ......400 students K-12
The school ( and parents) are doing a great job of encouraging education.
High school drop outs are very rare.
Last year about 90% of graduating students were headed to a college/vo-tech school.
However, as the OP alluded to, the farther away from that city of 70,000 that people can commute to, the more bleak the prospects are for the town.
Many rural towns our size no lomger have a high school as they were forced to consolidate with another school district.
Some places have gone thru 3 or 4 consolidations and the name of the school district/high school now has 4 or 5 letters representing the abbreviation of the towns it serves.
Framnkly, I think our district should have consolidated as well because our property taxes are sky high and the operating budget is short of money.
Yes, children can get a very good education in those small towns, but hopefully they go on to school after high school in order to leave and find a job that doesn't guarantee them a life of poverty.
Staying in their small town will nearly guarantee them a life of poverty.
Wish it was different, but that's the facts on many small towns that have many boarded up business places on main street.
I would just comment that you can't completely judge a town by what you see on one road. I think of the small town I grew up in, and the highway that runs through the east side of town very much matches your description. If you went through the town on the west side, near the freeway, then it would appear to be a small, yet vibrant town. Completely different views of the same town.
I attended school in a rural, consolidated district in a town of under 10,000, composed of students from said town and surrounding smaller towns and townships (mostly 400 and under), whose schools had folded in the 70s and 80s. I lived on a farm, with parents who ran a small business. My parents are educated. There were many people in the area I grew up in who did not have formal education beyond high school, and many with two-year degrees, four-year degrees, and graduate degrees, as well, depending on the industry. Jobs are a problem in the rural midwest. The main sources of employment where I grew up were agriculture, agricultural processing (my hometown is home to a large commercial vegetable cannery), and light and heavy industry relating mainly to agriculture. These all accommodated people with an array of educational backgrounds, at various levels.
Somebody said that small towns' biggest export is their kids, and this matches my experience. I left the area, and the state, for college, myself (to a rural town elsewhere, actually). I student taught in a rural school, which was k-12, all one building. My American Literature class had seven students in it.
I returned to my hometown and worked for the majority of my young adulthood as the editor of the community newspaper, after several years of having lived in large cities (one of those "intellectual, liberal arts types" who actually DIDN'T aspire to work in The Big City, and saw the merit in producing something of value in a small community, go figure) . I was one of very, very, very few young adults in my town working a job that required a college degree. I eventually left, after about seven years, because I had gotten what I could from the experience and no other professional opportunities were available. It's unfortunate, as both my SO and I would love to live in my hometown...but the jobs that are appropriate for us and our skill sets and interests don't exist there. Most of the positions that do require our level of schooling are being held by people twice our age who are not in a position to retire. The majority of the positions that become available with any regularity are unskilled labor-related.
Regarding schools, I've worked in inner city schools and rural schools. The challenges that are most common and crushing (poverty, lack of parenting, and institutionalized ignorance) are rampant in both. The specifics are different, the challenges are overall the same. I got a great education. But I got it as much outside of school as in it...because I had parents who did a good job and prioritized learning, and who instilled in me a desire to learn. I don't give the teachers I had growing up a ton of credit for my getting a good education, to be honest, I lay that much more firmly at the feet of my parents. While there were a handful of gems, most of our teachers were and continue to be mediocre (I covered education there as an adult when I worked for the paper, and saw the continued decline in teaching quality). I was one of the "easy" kids, so they'd let me read my books and not really worry about me (or teach me too much of anything, either), because they were so glad to have a student who wasn't fighting learning.
when descriptions like........super small towns......and .......many boarded up buildings...... is used, yes, I would say that town has a high percent of its population w/o schooling beyond high school .
Do you really think many wealthy college grads would be living there ?
The problem with topics like this is the people who are offended live in a town that doesn't match the OP's description.
I think the OP's assestment of the town they described is about as accurate as can be.
In a large percentage of these rural schools, the students are getting just as good or better of a basic education as in the larger city schools when considering the basics.
The most basic of courses in high school are usually covered well with much more direct help in the smaller rural schools. Classes like English, History, Algebra, Geometry etc.
Where the education lags, at no fault to the rural small town schools, is in any offerings of an advanced or specialized nature such as Calculus, Physics, Languages, or any AP courses. They can't provide the teachers for only a few students financially. Distance learning setups help, but it isn't the same as having your instructor available at all times.
Rural students compete quite well in college with their large city counterparts. They may be forced to take some extra classes in college in a particular major due to having not taken any advanced type course in HS that most of their new classmates have already been introduced to. A for instance would be a math major entering college who has never taken Calculus. He would have some catching up to do.
In a large percentage of these rural schools, the students are getting just as good or better of a basic education as in the larger city schools when considering the basics.
The most basic of courses in high school are usually covered well with much more direct help in the smaller rural schools. Classes like English, History, Algebra, Geometry etc.
Where the education lags, at no fault to the rural small town schools, is in any offerings of an advanced or specialized nature such as Calculus, Physics, Languages, or any AP courses. They can't provide the teachers for only a few students financially. Distance learning setups help, but it isn't the same as having your instructor available at all times.
Rural students compete quite well in college with their large city counterparts. They may be forced to take some extra classes in college in a particular major due to having not taken any advanced type course in HS that most of their new classmates have already been introduced to. A for instance would be a math major entering college who has never taken Calculus. He would have some catching up to do.
You did a great job in analyzing small,rural , schools.
I served 2 terms as an elected school board member and our problems were the same as you outlined.
It gets very costly operating a very small school district because you lose flexibility. Our state ( Minnesota ) used to deny schools permission to build new facilities if students per grade was under 66.
Due to uproar from small districts, they relented.
They should have kept the 66 requirement because lower than that makes it hard to react to enrollment numbers fluctuating year to year.
Our principal stated our small district ( 33 kids per grade) could offer every class neighboring ,bigger, districts offered.
He stated there was a catch.......... depending upon how many kids signed up for that elective.
Everybody likes small schools , small class sizes, and all the options ( academic and extra ciricular ) of a bigger school.
That is an oxymoron as no school distrioct has unlimited resources..... $$$$$$$$
I had about 250 kids in my high school, in a town that wasn't very big.
I really enjoyed my high school. Sure, the school had trouble with funding. However, we did get quite a few grants for things like SMARTboards and technology. Our school had some issues, but not like you see in the inner city. Everybody pretty much knew each other by name. It was a very good experience. Sure, we didn't have a school paper or as many clubs as other schools. But I really enjoyed it. I had mostly good teachers. My school did have Spanish and French, but they only got it my Junior year I think. It was ITV. We also only had baseball, softball, and basketball. No football or track.
I'm in college now, working on my Associate's.
Rural schools do have issues with funding that need to be addressed. But the ones I know of and have experienced were pretty good.
What the OP observed is not limited to small rural towns. I grew up in a 1st-tier suburb of a major city. It was a solid working/middle class town with good schools, low crime, and many beautiful parks and amenities. Now it has boarded up buildings and its schools rank near the bottom of the barrel. What happened? People run from problems. As the problems of the city spilled over into this neighboring community people who valued education, low crime, and desired real estate fled to nearby towns further from the problems.
Just like the children in the small rural towns mentioned, the children who grew up in my hometown did not return after college. However, it wasn't because jobs weren't available, it was because the town did not meet their expectations of what they wanted in their lives. For those who did return most left when they started a family because they wanted better schools for their children.
Eventually, we, as a nation, will come to the point when people can no longer run from the problems their community faces as finding Utopia becomes too expensive or impossible. This will not happen until we can have honest discussions about the underlying factors of social problems and/or economic factors intervene changing migration patterns of more affluent and/or educated residents.
Last edited by Lincolnian; 08-28-2010 at 06:19 AM..
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