One more example of our focus on the urban ...

to the exclusion of the rural.

"Waiting for Superman" has been getting lots of media attention. Here's an excerpt from Gail Collins' column:

So kudos to the new documentary “Waiting for Superman” for ratcheting up the interest level. It follows the fortunes of five achingly adorable children and their hopeful, dedicated, worried parents in Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., as they try to gain entrance to high-performing charter schools. Not everybody gets in, and by the time you leave the theater you are so sad and angry you just want to find something to burn down.

Did you get that? Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, DC? nary a nonmetropolitan place in the lot. Indeed, these are all places that are a 1 on the Rural-Urban Continuum that runs from 1 to 9. That's because, at least as far as I know, rural students have no options. It's the local school or the highway--well, or home schooling. Rural students don't have the option of even a miserable lottery if their local schools are performing poorly on all the "metrics."

And here is a link to an NPR story last week. There are others on NPR, where Guggenheim's film has gotten a lot of attention. See more here and here.