Strong local communities are the best habitat for excellence in education, and education is the responsibility of the whole community. Setting high academic standards and achieving against those standards is an important educational objective, but the quest for higher standards can be exploited to serve other purposes. This statement sets out the Rural Challenge's general view of this important policy issue. The process of adopting standards can both strengthen content and increase public acceptance of those standards; the process should be participatory and inclusive. The Rural Challenge advocates three types of standards: content standards that establish what the community expects the child to accomplish; context standards that provide a pedagogy of place using the community and the native environment as curriculum; and learning condition standards that cover such things as the physical environment, access, and student rights. High standards can build intellectual character, but standards can be used to establish a state-determined correctness that undermines intellectual integrity. Another concern is the potential misuse of standards to shape legislative or judicial decisions affecting equity. The relationship between high standards and equity is important to rural communities because small schools have been closed in the name of raising standards and improving education when, in fact, the real objective was to lower costs. For all communities, but especially for rural communities, it is important that academic standards originate in the community, then children, schools, and communities can build on their shared strengths. (TD)