New York is among the nation’s least rural states, yet its rural schools still serve nearly 360,000 students – one of the largest rural student populations in the country. Socioeconomic challenges consistently rank below the national median, and student diversity is moderately high. Some aspects of the policy context are troubling, with large rural schools and districts, proportional transportation spending to instruction among the highest in the nation, and inequity in school district revenue among the nation’s worst. All of this ranks New York 37th in the country in need of rural education attention and improvement.