Golden Egg States

I remember my mother telling me once that “If only your school was in New York.” My mother is a terrible eastern snob who thinks if you don’t live in New York, you can’t make it. I always wondered what it meant to “make it” and in whose eyes I was supposed to do this “making it.”

My response to her was, “Aren’t the children in Southwestern Indiana as important as the kids in New York?”

What Southwestern Indiana allows educators to do is a lot more liberal than most closed up eastern states who prescribe, prescribe, prescribe.

Where is the best education? The irony is, the best educated kids ALWAYS came from one room school houses out where the snow was up to your chin and you had to ride a mule to get there. These kids always maxed out the SATs and could read Greek at six. These are called the Golden Egg States.

Last May, I was sent a news release about Rural Education. Busy with school and getting finished for the school year, and starting summer, I ignored it. But now that school is starting again, I think the question of rural education is interesting. Most of us don’t feel as if Evansville or the surrounding areas are rural, but much of our area is. There are hundreds of one room school houses right here in Southwestern Indiana. They are Amish Schools, and although the education varies, they are communities that teach, and therefore part of our rural heritage.

Here’s a website that discusses Rural Education. You might find it interesting. Rural Education and Community Trust .

Using a “rural education priority gauge,” Rural Trust analysts were able to
identify states where rural students receive a world-class education (dubbed the
“golden egg” states). They also identify states whose rural schools seem
to be structured like their larger urban counterparts, without considering the
distinct needs of rural students, or these state’s so-called “country
cousins.”