The study indentified all K-12 and 1-12 public school districts in the United States enrolling less than 300 students (n=1,414) and those enrolling 301-900 students (n=2,711), collected and analyzed data related to superintendents, school districts, teachers, students, and school programs, and gathered data that might be useful to colleges of teacher education. A response and return rate of 79% (642, 132-item questionnaires returned), of which 244 of the rural schools had less than 300 students and 398 had in excess of 300. Sections include discussion and statistics on district enrollments, district leadership, transportation, special school funding, primary occupations of people living in the district, district staff, teacher salaries, new teachers, secondary preparation, teacher recruitment, district problems, student performance, student awards, educational programs, extra-curricular sports offered, and selected course offerings. Concluding the report is a list of 18 findings that would be of interest to teacher educators in the preparation of teachers for rural America, i.e., teacher preparation programs should provide field experiences in rural schools, the mean beginning salary for teachers was $12,375 and overall average salary was $16,139, during the past year 81.9% hired no new teachers due to an increase in students, and teachers averaged three subject preparations. (AH)