Bill Clinton: “This was just one school, not a school district, and it was amazing. But there was an article in The Washington Post and…”

“This was just one school, not a school district, and it was amazing. But there was an article in The Washington Post and in other newspapers over the weekend about the teacher shortage in America, and I'm very concerned about it. We have two proposals. One is to put 35,000 teachers in the most difficult and underserved areas in the country--it's part of our budget--the other would put 100,000 teachers out there across the country in the first 3 grades, to try to keep class size down below 20. And I think those things are very, very important. One of the things I'm hoping I can do is to persuade the Congress in the next month to embrace the idea that we clearly have a national obligation now to support what is a national phenomenon, the explosion of the number of schoolchildren in our schools. So when you say what you did, it made me want to think about that. I'd like to go on now to JoAnn Shackelford, because it seems to be a logical followup to what you said about the diversity of your student body and teaching people to read and this Saturday program, which I'm very interested in. It sounds to me like something everybody ought to be doing. Ms. Shackelford. Thank you. First of all, I wanted to tell you, welcome to our school. We're so excited you're here. Miss Freeman is a hard act to follow, so I won't try. But I do have a few things to ask for. [Laughter]”