Reviewing the history of rural education reform, this paper argues for a policy of improving rural schools on their strengths, rather than a policy of consolidation. Since the late 1970's, rural school reform has placed greater emphasis on developing policies and educational strategies that allow rural schools to be different from urban schools and to begin building programs around their strengths and uniqueness. As a result, during the 1980's there were considerably fewer school consolidations compared to each of the previous decades of the 1900's. An outgrowth of this trend in Iowa was the passage of legislation that allowed school districts to begin sharing students, programs, and services among school districts. This report describes the successful sharing of a superintendent among two rural counties. The biggest incentives for school districts to share a superintendent are the cost savings and the substantial amount of state incentive money that school districts receive for sharing a superintendent. In 1988 the School Administrators of Iowa surveyed 37 superintendents who were serving 2 or more districts for the 1988-89 school year. The survey found that 61 percent of the respondents believed that sharing superintendents among districts was a good idea. Shared superintendency is a viable cost-saving alternative for small, rural school districts. Also discussed are the strengths of rural education and how rural education measures up to the six national education goals. (LP)