Rural American schools still educate almost 28 percent of the nation's children, but only educational historians and rural sociologists have paid much attention to issues and dynamics of such places. Here, rural educators often intentionally teach and model national norms, values, expectations, and skills. Such teachings, they allege, are particularly critical to children's successful participation in the national culture, as rural communities typically do not have the types of complementary social or economic institutions that support metropolitan schooling aims. Meanwhile, these schools themselves often continue as targets of state and federal reform efforts since their local tax base often makes them particularly dependent upon outside funding sources. In the following essay I briefly develop a number of these themes. I then illustrate various rural school dynamics and issues with data from a West Virginia school system in which I have been involved in various research capacities during the past five years.