The Rural School Leadership Dilemma

Abstract

The idea that rural schools and communities, indeed, even rural people, are somehow substandard or second-class has deep historical roots. The goal of this essay is to reveal that history so as to render stereotypical conceptions all things rural less powerful and more easily dismissed by rural school professionals. Consequently the focus is on one dilemma every rural school leader faces: when to speak up in the face of rural denigration.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeanne L. Surface

Jeanne L. Surface received her Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from the University of Wyoming in 2006. She served as a Superintendent in the rural and very remote Park County School District #16, next to Yellowstone National Park. Previously, Jeanne served as Elementary Principal in Ogallala, Nebraska and High School Principal in Wakefield, Nebraska. She is now an Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in Educational Leadership and teaches School Law and Principal Preparation courses. She is a fierce advocate of rural schools and communities.

Paul Theobald

Paul Theobald currently serves as Dean of the School of Education at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. He has published widely in the area of community-based and place-based education. His most recent book, Education Now: How Re-thinking America's Past Can Change Its Future (Paradigm, 2009), won the Critic's Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association.