Initial Conversation Starter

I am attaching an article that parallels some of the general thinking I've come across in recent months regarding rural poverty and teacher education. I selected this article because it's something I can actually attach. It speaks within a particular context of the tendencies for rural talent and skill to outmigrate toward urban settings, leaving rural communities less equipped and underresourced.

My thinking in this vein has been most recently influenced by a book entitled, re21: Rural Education for the Twenty-First Century (Schafft, K.A. & Jackson, A.Y, editors, 2010). In this compilation of works, there is an underriding theme of establishing a sense of community identity, a valuing of 'place' within a specific rural setting, and developing networks that foster appreciation for sustained viability of heritage and meaningfulness for small communities across the country - and to embed this posture into the educational process in smaller communites so that the tendency to 'run off to the big city' is a decision made from a more informed, and locally-considered, perspective.

Anyway, here is the article. Feel free to also suggest other topics of conversation. I am new to this blog site and presume you can begin a new, separate posting on other topics related to this discussion group. I understand it's a lot broader than this intial conversation starter. Welcome!

Here is the link: Sharman & Sage (2011)

"Sending Off All Your Good Treasures: Rural Schools, Brain-Drain, and Community Survival in the Wake of Economic Collapse"
http://jrre.psu.edu/articles/26-11.pdf