Rural children and youth represent a substantial minority of U.S. students. The author of this commentary contends that the unique educational needs of rural communities have been largely ignored by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) and that rural schools are treated as the "poor country cousins" of the U.S. education system. Recent efforts by the USDE have done little to change that perspective. Indeed, they point to a troubling trend of using resources allocated for rural education issues to fund generic programs that are just as applicable to suburban and urban contexts as they are to rural places.