ABSTRACT
The school-based community development corporation (CDC) is one alternative for rural education. Rural America has long been plagued by major problems in economic development and in vocational education. This chapter reviews the major economic development and vocational education efforts of the past two decades. It proposes a new mechanism, the school-based CDC, as a model that makes the relationships between education and development both theoretically explicit and operationally feasible. The chapter presents a schema that provides a more explicit representation of the vicious cycle of rural poverty and underdevelopment. A new mechanism has evolved that has considerable potential for increasing the effectiveness of development, and thereby diminishing the cycle of rural deprivation: the CDC. In theory, the CDC strategy provides a comprehensive development framework. With initial financing coming from a combination of grants, loans, and special bond issues, the school-based CDC will own and operate businesses, services, and other productive enterprises in the local community.
