The Tragedy Of America’s Rural Schools

I recently read the story of a high school student in Mississippi about the same age as one of my boys. It was a sad story, filled with people trying to do good and failing at almost every turn. And the students that continued to suffer for it. The frustrating thing about reading this story was that it was hard to find a single thing or person to blame for it. As reporter Casey Parks shared one character after another at the heart of the failing school district of Holmes County, the futility of every well-intentioned effort hits you hard. People try. Then they fail. Then they leave.

Along the way, the children who struggle either continue to struggle ... or they make it out, and then they leave. Or they come back, try to help, fail again, and leave again. So the cycle continues. The article and the situation it describes seems hopeless because it has been, even as each new generation continues to hope for something different. The story of how America has forgotten these rural kids is heartbreaking. And there doesn’t seem to be a solution coming. For once, the title of the story wasn’t hyperbole. The story of rural schools in America is indeed a tragedy.