Over the past forty years education in America has been in a reform mode. The latest reform has come in the form of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). NCLB has dictated standards to all schools in the nation. While many schools have joined the reform movement, few have made the systemic changes necessary to sustain achievement. A particular concern among reformers is the effect of standards reform on the urban and/or rural poor. This book examines one rural school district¿s efforts to develop a standards-based education program. This school meets the federal criteria for both poor and rural having 100% of its students qualifying for the free and reduced lunch program. In addition, over 30% of the student population comes to school without knowledge of the English language. In spite of these apparent disadvantages, the school has achieved success as exhibited by a growth of over 100 points as measured by the California Academic Performance Index (API). A qualitative, descriptive-analytic case study methodology was employed to provide an in-depth investigation of the school site¿s implementation of fiduciary and curricular matters.