As always, I am pleased to be here at the National Press Club for my【L1】______Speech. This is the seventh time I have had the【L2

As always, I am pleased to be here at the National Press Club for my Annual Back-to-School Speech. This is the seventh time I have had the opportunity to give this speech, and over the years I have talked about a wide range of issues: family involvement, reading, setting high expectations, improving the teaching profession, and reforming the American high school — to name just a few.
    I have just returned from a five-day, seven-state tour of schools in rural America. We started in Monroe, Louisiana, and finished 20 stops later in Paducah, Kentucky. What I noticed most about the trip was the weather. Every time I stepped off my Success Express School Bus, the local people who came to greet me announced that the record for heat had just been broken in their community. In each place, the temperature was always between 103 and 112 degrees.
    Now, I have very good people on my staff. But the next time we plan a bus trip, I’m going to have a weatherman on my staff. I took this bus trip through rural America to make an important point that the education of children in our nation’s small towns cannot be ignored. Twenty-five percent of all our school children live in small towns all over America.
    When it comes to our children, let’s always remember that children everywhere have big dreams and great ambitions. Yet, schools in small towns too often have to struggle because of limited resources and a shrinking tax base. On my trip I put a strong focus on the issues that matter in rural America, with a particular emphasis on constructing schools, reducing class size, and overcoming the digital divide.