It's always been difficult to recruit teachers to rural schools. Young teachers commonly choose the social and cultural life of college towns, suburbs, and cities; older teachers who are a career-changers are likely to have established family ties to the communities in which they currently live.
A good solution has been to "grow your own" teachers by recruiting and supporting rural high school students, classroom paraprofessionals, or the workers in the school cafeteria to get to college and then return to teach in local schools. Schools are then staffed by people with roots in their communities; the high teacher turn-over that most rural districts experience is reduced. Logically (and intentionally), these recruited students reflected the demographics of their communities.
Because there are few resources in local communities to support such efforts, the federal government supported programs that provide rural students with scholarships and sometimes, the capacity to do the required supervised internships in their home districts. All of this was toward the goal of equity: Rural students deserve well-qualified teachers as much as any other student.
And then, last May, the Department of Education suddenly cancelled $600 million of these grants, citing "DEI". Students were uncertain how they'd finish school; staff were laid off and program offices closed.
The unfairness, DOE inferred, was not that rural students are far more likely to have inexperienced or unqualified teachers than other students. The unfairness, instead, was that young Latinx and Black and low-income white people were being recruited to become teachers of their neighbors and siblings and cousins in rural communities.
Already struggling rural communities were dealt yet another blow.
