Revisiting The Rural Teacher Workforce: Insights from a Novel Rurality Measure

How we define rurality fundamentally shapes our place-based understanding of the teacher workforce. This study uses the Community Assets and Relative Rurality (CARR) Index—a novel, multidimensional measure of rurality—alongside longitudinal administrative data to examine K–12 teachers in Kansas and Missouri. We find substantial variation in teacher demographic and professional characteristics across rurality levels. Teachers in more rural districts are significantly more likely to leave their districts, and those who switch are more likely to move toward urban areas. This study provides a launching point for integrating nuanced measures of rurality into education research and underscores the importance of recognizing heterogeneity within rural communities when designing policies to support and retain rural educators.