Op-ed from President Barack Obama on the Strength and Resilience of Rural America

[Commentary] Over the last eight years, my Administration has worked hand-in-hand with rural communities to build more opportunity – investing in rural schools, supporting rural small business owners, deploying high speed Internet and wireless, and building partnerships between businesses and colleges to help train folks not just for a job, but for a career. And for those struggling with opioid use, we've expanded access to treatment to help them get the care they need. So we're making progress – progress that's possible only because of the strength and resilience of the people in our rural communities.

In Pikeville (KY) former coal miners are trading coal for code. They're retraining to learn HTML, JavaScript, and PHP, transforming an old bottling factory into a digital hub. It's a transition that not only supports good jobs, but also offers a glimpse of what the future could look like in other communities like Pikeville. In Piedmont (AL) school leaders have invested in high-speed connectivity and laptops for every student, so that teachers can tailor lessons to individual students and assess each student's progress in real time. Already, test scores and graduation rates are up, and tiny Piedmont City School District has emerged as a national model for digital learning. That's what rural America can look like in the 21st Century. Smart investments that lead to real, tangible progress. Today, rural unemployment has dropped from a high of about ten percent during the Great Recession to six percent. The rural child poverty rate is dropping, and rural median household incomes are rising again. In so many ways, from its resilience and ingenuity in the face of a challenge to the defining values that power it every day, rural America represents that beating heart. That's why these communities are so important – because when America's rural communities are strong, America is strong.