*Administration of Barack Obama, 2016 *

**The President's Weekly Address **

*January 30, 2016 *

Hi, everybody. As I said in my State of the Union Address, we live in a time of extraordinary change, change that's affecting the way we live and the way we work. New technology replaces any job where work can be automated. Workers need more skills to get ahead. These changes aren't new, and they're only going to accelerate. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, how can we make sure everyone has a fair shot at success in this new economy?

The answer to that question starts with education. That's why my administration has encouraged States to raise standards. We've cut the digital divide in our classrooms by half. We've worked with Congress to pass a bipartisan bill to set the expectation that every student should graduate from high school ready for college and a good job. And thanks to the hard work of students, teachers, and parents across the country, our high school graduation rate is at an alltime high.

Now we have to make sure all our kids are equipped for the jobs of the future, which means not just being able to work with computers, but developing the analytical and coding skills to power our innovation economy. Today's auto mechanics aren't just sliding under cars to change the oil, they're working on machines that run on as many as a hundred million lines of code. That's a hundred times more than the space shuttle. Nurses are analyzing data and managing electronic health records. Machinists are writing computer programs. And workers of all kinds need to be able to figure out how to break a big problem into smaller pieces and identify the right steps to solve it.

In the new economy, computer science isn't an optional skill, it's a basic skill, right along with the three "Rs." Nine out of ten parents want it taught to their child in school. Yet right now only a quarter of our K-through-12 schools offer computer science. Twenty-two States don't even allow it to count toward a diploma.

So I've got a plan to help make sure all our kids get an opportunity to learn computer science, especially girls and minorities. It's called Computer Science for All. And it means just what it says: giving every student in America an early start at learning the skills they need to get ahead in the new economy.

First, I'm asking Congress to provide funding so that our elementary, middle, and high schools can provide opportunities to learn computer science for all students. Second, starting this year, we're leveraging existing resources at the National Science Foundation and the Corporation for National and Community Service to train more great teachers for these courses. And third, I'll be pulling together Governors, mayors, business leaders, and tech entrepreneurs to join the growing bipartisan movement around this cause. Americans of all kinds are getting involved, from students teaching each other to code to teachers adding programming to their classes. And just today States like Delaware and Hawaii, companies like Google and Salesforce, and organizations like Code.org have made commitments to help more of our kids learn these skills.

That's what this is all about: each of us doing our part to make sure all our young people can compete in a high-tech, global economy. They're the ones who will make sure America—the country that invented all this stuff in the first place—keeps growing, keeps innovating, and keeps leading the world in the years ahead. And they're the reason I've never been more confident about our future.

Thanks everybody, and have a great weekend.

NOTE: The address was recorded at approximately 3:25 p.m. on January 29 in the Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast on January 30. The transcript was made available by the Office of the Press Secretary on January 29, but was embargoed for release until 6 a.m. on January 30.

*Categories:* Addresses and Remarks : Weekly addresses*.*

*Locations: *Washington, DC.

*Subjects:* Community Service, Corporation for National and; Education : Global competitiveness; Education : Government and private sector, coordination efforts; Education : Technology and innovation, expansion efforts; Science Foundation, National.

*DCPD Number:* DCPD201600042.