New Mexico ranks eighth among the 50 states in need of rural education attention and improvement. It also ranks sixth in terms of socioeconomic challenges and second in terms of student diversity. Nearly one in four families of school-age children lives in poverty, more than one in three students is learning English as a second language, and nearly one in five students qualifies for special education services. Exacerbating these challenges are inequitable distributions of state education funds and high transportation costs compared to instructional spending. It’s not surprising that rural scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress are the lowest in the U.S.