The conditions of Rural Education in America

I have been expecting to find the rural education in Mexico to be low quality and inadequate in comparison to American urban education. I have quickly jumped to this conclusion thinking all rural education must be of lower quality. It is expected to find less experienced teachers and a disadvantages for the lack of up-to-date resources. Today I read an article from 1994 called “The Condition of Education in Rural Schools” and I realized I had hypothesized wrong. According to a field study by the OERI (Office of Education and Research improvement) “Student achievements in small schools equaled or exceeded that of students in large schools, suggesting that the climate in small schools may propel students to excel in spite of certain material disadvantages.”

                In spite of my predictions one cannot put all the blame of poor education on lower quality materials. The article also claims that though it is true that students from rural communities have less educated parents, less educated teachers and limited resources they proved no less capable to succeed in college. But, though that are in no sense less capable than students from urban schools, it’s evident that less rural students pursue post-secondary education.  Therefor on average, they end up with lower income jobs. The problem is not their quality of education, but they envision themselves in lower level, less skilled jobs than the urban students. It’s not a lack of opportunity but a lack of vision.

                Somehow rural students are envisioning a lower potential than those found in urban communities. This could be traced back to many reasons: lower educated parents, less local jobs requiring a college education, the low percentage of advanced degree graduates found in the community, and many others.  The point is, somewhere along the path they lose their motivation to achieve an advanced education. The article says backs this up saying that often the rural students value their high school job more than their education.  

                This article had a huge effect on me, because I have been so convinced that money was the real issue to low quality education in rural Mexico. I might ask myself, if a rural school in Guanajuato Mexico was provided with modern resources and better qualified teachers, would they succeed just as well as those in urban communities? I feel the answer is no because of the rural culture is based on agriculture and other employment that does not require a college degree.

                I will end with this question; if my end goal is to help Hispanic immigrant student succeed, do I adhere to correcting neglected education for lack of resources, or in promoting the renewal of their expected potential?