This analysis recounts and examines the history of American public education, focusing on the experiences of poor urban and rural students of color. Using the lens of critical race theory, it suggests that educational inequity is not just raced and classed but also spatialized--that is, embedded in and maintained through geography. The mechanisms of this spatialization similarly disadvantage rural and urban schools serving poor children of color, and educational reforms have failed to dismantle the relationship between inequity and geography. Offering a clearer understanding of today's inequities, this analysis shows that these schools should be seen less as opposites than as allies with a shared interest in expanding educational opportunity across geographies.