Late last month, Duane Martin, an attorney with EdCounsel, an Independence law firm specializing in education law, gave a sober, nonpartisan presentation to about 80 community members and education administrators. He warned about challenges facing Missouri’s rural public schools to the gathering at Emmons Hall Auditorium in Mexico, Missouri.

Citing the National Rural Education Association’s 2025 “Why Rural Matters” report, Martin said, “Missouri is the second most-concerning state in terms of need for changes in state education policy to improve funding. Only Illinois is worse. The report also ranked Missouri seventh as a priority for overall changes, and not just for funding concerns. Missouri is in the report’s top 10 states that need help because rural teacher salaries are among the lowest in the nation, one in every 25 rural Missouri students is unhoused and Missouri has the country’s worst ratio of students with access to primary care clinicians.”

The report also noted for every loc…