An Opportunity to Revive Rural America

 They're not necessarily ghost towns, but maybe a modern day version of ghost towns. Rural America is dotted with near-dead towns and communities. Once bustling town squares are now a ragtag collection of vape shops, tobacco stores, and second-hand thrift stores. The ruins of buildings that once housed successful small businesses stand dilapidated next to the new bright shiny Dollar General. Next to nothing is produced here. Most of what is consumed comes from miles away. Small towns that decades ago were almost fully self-supporting are barely surviving on a an IV of government handouts. 

It's not a new phenomenon, but one that has been getting worse and worse for decades. Towns close enough to metro areas became bedroom communities for their large neighbors, but opportunity eludes those communities more distant. Rural America has been dying for a long time, kept on life support by a dwindling few who refused to leave. Those few commute long distances to make enough money to pay for gas and bring a little back to keep the ever more faint pulse of their community beating. 

That's a pretty bleak picture I've painted, but the key to rural America's revival could be right under our noses. Remote work!

According to this article on Forbes.com, 12.7% of the US workforce currently works from home, while 28.7% work in a hybrid setting. A 2020 study by Upwork estimated 22% will be working remotely by 2025. This transformation could be the next gold rush for rural America, especially with federal and state governments pushing broadband internet access for rural communities. But it's going to take more than fiber optic cable for these dying towns to take advantage of this opportunity.

Generations have passed, whole lives lived in such communities where no opportunity existed. People were born, they lived, and they died never believing in an opportunity for a decent life. Poverty here isn't just the norm. To many residents of these areas it's destiny. This lack of hope has largely created a culture that doesn't know to look for opportunity, or even how to take advantage of it if it crashes headlong into it. 

Parents don't know how to teach their children to seize it because parents never saw opportunity. Community leaders don't understand it either because even as they learned to lead, there was no opportunity to point those they lead toward. Hope to many hangs on a potential cost of living increase in the disability check, or the added cash that comes with another kid in the house. The idea of a good-paying job is so foreign it sounds like a fairy tale.

And maybe worst of all...community schools don't know how to teach them to grasp this new opportunity. Schools have suffered right alongside the rest of their communities. These schools were tasked with teaching students to be productive citizens in communities where no opportunity to be productive existed. The success rate of preparing them is probably close to the same it would be if they'd been tasked with teaching fish to climb trees. But it's not the kids' fault, not the parents' fault, not the teachers' fault, not the administrators' fault, and not the community leaders' fault. 

When no opportunity existed, their task was impossible. But no longer!

Remote work and expanded broadband access is putting opportunity within EVERYONE'S reach! Many of these jobs pay well. If we can find a way to tap into this remote job pipeline, the up and coming generation of workers in these remote areas could possibly see their starting wages doubling or tripling the current highest paying jobs in their communities.

To get there, schools are going to have to step up their game. Many of the fields with the highest proportion of remote jobs require college degrees. Many schools in these areas had no real reason to invest a lot in preparing their kids for college before, because so few went to college. If these communities hope to take advantage of remote work opportunities, their schools are going to have to get on board. K-12 education MUST offer kids a chance to succeed in college!

That will require not only better instruction and more college prep classes, but a change in expectations as well. Too many schools have allowed too many kids to make too good of grades for too little work and too little learning. Schools have to get back to teaching kids good work habits. Students have earned credits and grades for doing work even if that work didn't produce any learning. I recently saw a parent state that grades are a "reflection of compliance, not of learning." As a teacher it makes me sad to have to admit that in many cases that statement is accurate. 

We MUST get back to training kids to be productive, not just to be busy. I could work hard every day and produce nothing. If I take my shovel and dig all day long, a big hole, I will have worked hard. The next day I could go back out and spend all day with my shovel filling that hole in. I'd have worked hard. But I'd have produced exactly nothing. Even though I'd have worked hard two full days, I'd have earned exactly nothing, because I'd have produced nothing. 

School work shouldn't be just busy work, and grades should reflect more than just staying busy. All school work should be designed to produce learning, and grades should reflect how much was learned. If we don't train kids to produce results, they won't be ready to work remotely, on site, or in their yard with a shovel. Ask almost any employer today and they will tell you kids are leaving school unprepared for jobs. If they can't handle a job with a supervisor standing over them, they won't be able to handle a remote job either.

When I went to school, school prepared me for work, because I got grades I earned. My work and effort produced results. Good results were rewarded with good grades. Poor results were rewarded with bad grades. I learned to be productive. 

Schools also have to return to teaching responsibility and respect. Too many kids today believe deadlines are make believe. They don't exist. Due dates for school work mean nothing. The kid who turns in his work on time gets the grade, and the kid who doesn't will get an opportunity to turn in the work whenever he feels like it. Deadlines matter, and they'll certainly matter when you're working remotely. 

I know a guy who works remotely and makes more than a half a million dollars a year. He bought a house and established his residence in a state with no state income tax. He spends weeks each year in places like Hawaii and foreign countries. He gets his work done and enjoys life. This may not be a typical remote job, but if he can do that, a $50K/year job from deep in the Ozarks for the Mississippi River Delta are certainly attainable. 

If the folks who live there have the knowledge, the work ethic, and the skills to work remotely.

Now is the time for leaders in rural America to recognize this opportunity, and to seize it! Politicians and policymakers have been wringing their hands over this problem for decades as our rural communities decayed. Many resigned themselves to accept the problem as unsolvable. But here before them now lies a solution.

Let's work together to solve it and revive rural America!