This collection of conference presentations focuses on the twin themes of restructuring and technology in rural schools. Rural America's increasingly polarized demographics, political leadership voids, teacher training, renewal strategies, and ever-shrinking budgets are discussed, along with ongoing media criticism, which is a reality for all educators in the 1980s. Opening speaker Ron Knutson described many rural problems as being associated with an economic decline that contrasts with the economic upswing enjoyed by the rest of the nation. Four educational administrators from Western states placed the responsibility for improvement on state and local administrators and educators. The major topic in education today is restructuring. Stanford University's Michael Kirst observed that ideas challenging traditional educational models suffer in the current atmosphere of low public confidence, but he depicted schools as having little choice but to restructure. Arizona State University's David Berliner raised a different restructuring question: Why is so little attention paid to the role of research in transforming schools? Because of its promise for the rural future, technology took center stage on the conference's second day. But technology specialist Robert Pearlman cautioned that the mere purchase of high-tech systems is no assurance that education will improve. The processes of learning and teaching must be reassessed and new technology appropriately exploited to turn students into active learners. Pearlman proposed making technology-smart teachers the buyers of technology, in order to create and exploit a genuinely enthusiastic constituency for technology education. (TES)