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The article under consideration by Diane M. Truscott and Stephen D. Truscott is entitled “Differing Circumstances, Shared Challenges: Finding Common Ground Between Urban and Rural Schools” and intended for a wide range of readers especially those concerned with present-day issues of education in different types of communities and the way different segments of population may cooperate to gain power and find adequate solutions.
The article deals with the issues of modern education, rural schools in comparison with urban schools in particular and suggests a fresh look on the problem of their consideration, the authors finding it far more productive to call them not rural and urban but resource-rich and high-need schools respectively. That allows authorities to concentrate more on the challenges they face and look for better solutions. Diane M. Truscott and Stephen D. Truscott state that it is rarely heard about the issue of rural schools currently face that is the result of media concentration in cities mainly. In its turn, this moulds a rural/urban antagonism and unwillingness to admit that both urban and rural schools face similar struggles. Comparing their contemporary state and the conditions in which they develop the scholars notice a steady decline of employment as well as poverty increase influencing the funding (Truscott & Truscott, 2005). One more challenge in modern education is qualified teachers’ shortage as a consequence of the economically driven population shifts. According to the latest data, more than two million new professional instructors will be needed in the next ten years, but however, recruitment and training programs do not address the shortages. But what is even more crucial, it turns out to be more difficult not to hire but to keep qualified teachers in such poor working conditions rural schools offer them, that results in greater teacher turnover (Truscott & Truscott, 2005).
It is evident that in large metropolitan areas the population has blurred, while in areas that are far from large cities populations have steadily declined. The scholars provide readers with statistical data concerning the population density and the school-age population difference in response to economic pressures in the areas and give New Jersey where one resident in ten lives in a rural area as an example of the changes (Truscott & Truscott, 2005).
The scholars reasonably go back to the history of the term “urban” to reveal the nature of the phenomenon and consider the reasons why the middle-class residents moved and why “urban education” came to be regarded as a euphemism for education for basically poor communities. Here, they note that no matter in what type of community the school functions “it faces similar challenging conditions, contexts and social infrastructures” (Truscott & Truscott, 2005).
The scholars used sub-headings in the article that contributes to establishing a clear structure of the work with consistent exposition of the main ideas on the issue. It enables learning the subject of their investigation better and understanding the changes that occur in society, families’ movement from one region to another in search of better conditions that presupposes the diversity increase in the society and serious challenges appearance. The researchers consider the minorities and their drop-out level comparing it and establishing the achievement gap that is thoroughly observed in the study. The achievement levels are said to be connected not only with culture, race and language differences but also with the poverty issue (Truscott & Truscott, 2005). They are even more attributable to poverty than to race, therefore the issue should be considered with great attention, by the way, shared by urban and rural schools.
Current dissatisfying economic conditions create negative views toward the value of school and work and the statistics saying that 244 out of 250 US poorest counties are rural is more than convincing. In other words, ninety-eight percent of the poorest counties are rural. The interrelation of poverty and education, the high drop-out level are matters of primary concern not only for rural but for urban educators as well. The scholars present the results of the recent studies on the matter that all state that annually school children paradoxically need more but get less (Truscott & Truscott, 2005).
Then the scholars come up to the reasons of the current educational crisis in rural schools and find fault with funding. Affected by the global economic change and “buffeted by substantial outmigration of talented young people and families”, homogeneous residential patterns have been created that make the society more and more segregated by socioeconomic status. With quite a nominal (6-8 percent) contribution to education, the authorities make quite unsuccessful attempts to establish a system of segregated schools that poorly affects the performance of students and prevents them from achieving at higher levels as they do in integrated schools (Truscott & Truscott, 2005). Despite the established importance of small rural schools’ unique nature and benefits of intimate learning relationships provided in them rural communities are forced to close them down.
The concluding sector of the article deals with looking forward together where the scholars call for the changes in the struggle for better conditions if the rural and urban schools join forces and exert more effective influence on the national sociopolitical arena (Truscott & Truscott, 2005). Educational outcomes will hardly be improved if most school funding remains under local control and high-needed communities are financially entrapped. Only recognition of common issues and cooperation on deep and long-term solutions for both urban and rural schools will assist them in rooting out the causes of underperformance and finding ways to take meaningful steps toward school reform but not to confine themselves to fruitless discussions only.

 
References
Truscott D. M., Truscott S. D. (2005). Differing Circumstances, Shared Challenges: Finding Common Ground Between Urban and Rural Schools. Retrieved June 21, 2010.