A comparison of Middle Tennessee Rural (MTR) schools with the national sample of schools included in Kappa Delta Pi's Good Schools Project (GSP) focused on the areas of curriculum perspectives, goal attainment, classroom practices, interpersonal relations, commitment, discipline and safety, support services and facilities, and decision making. The study was based on responses to 2 separate survey instruments from 722 teachers and 3,846 students in 39 schools. Data analyses showed that MTR teachers and students reflected more traditional values with respect to education, indicated less support from the community and parents, perceived their schools as having fewer resources, had lower levels of commitment to education, and perceived their schools as attaining fewer of their goals than the GSP teachers and students. MTR teachers consistently perceived critical thinking skills as less important than did GSP teachers. MTR students perceived teachers as encouraging critical thinking less, using less variety in instruction, and placing more emphasis on the textbook. MTR teachers and students shared lower academic expectations than did GSP teachers and students. Administratively, MTR teachers perceived their schools to be more authoritarian with less involvement of teachers and students in decision making, planning, establishing rules and procedures, and evaluating school programs. (Author/JHZ)