Rural Education Equality and Improvement Act of 2009

The title of House Resolution 825 introduced by Representative Jim Marshall (R-GA) caught my eye. What will the Rural Education Equality and Improvement Act of 2009 do for rural students?

If the Secretary of Education takes any action (whether by regulation, guidance, or otherwise) to authorize increased flexibility for any category of rural local educational agencies, the Secretary shall extend the same level of increased flexibility to all rural local educational agencies.

That means Secretary Arne Duncan can't authorize flexibility in implementing statutes for only certain types of rural districts, instead he has to give it to all rural districts as defined in the Rural Education Achievement Program. I guess that means that if Secretary Duncan wanted to give some flexibility to rural districts with fewer than 600 students to address a problem related to the interaction of small size and geographic isolation (e.g., highly qualified teachers), he'd also have to give it to "rural" districts with 5,000 students.