This paper describes a summer institute on poverty offered for graduate degree credit through Western Carolina University. The institute targeted western North Carolina educators by inviting 18 regional school districts to sponsor one participant each. Speaker and seminar topics centered on the nature of poverty, its pervasiveness, its relationship to education, and the local effects of global and national economic issues. Planning issues, including selection of literature and videotaped material on rural poverty are described, and personal observations and a critique of the seminar are also offered in the first part of this paper. A second section examines issues raised during the seminar and describes their implications for schooling. Quotations from seminar presenters are used to describe the following three themes relating to education: (1) the need for educators to make connections with the lives of their students; (2) the "bottom-up" method of reform, or the idea that change should be initiated by the people directly affected by the problem; and (3) the powerful impact teachers have on students' lives. The document concludes with 12 points pertaining to education and educators. The points emphasize the importance of shared decision-making, complete educational funding, an understanding of students' environment, and educational reforms that begin in the classroom. The document also includes an extensive bibliography, a class syllabus, and an agenda for the two-week-long teachers' poverty institute. (TES)