First Lady Jill Biden to launch Educators for Biden to mobilize teachers

First lady Jill Biden in Minnesota will launch Educators for Biden-Harris on Friday – a national organizing program to engage and mobilize teachers, school staff and parents to vote for President Joe Biden, the campaign Biden-Harris shared exclusively with ABC. News.

Launching the coalition in an evening speech to educators at the Education Minnesota convention in Bloomington, the first lady, a teacher for more than 30 years, will call her husband “the president of education.”

“You deserve a president who recognizes your service,” the first lady will say, according to excerpts from the Biden-Harris campaign. “Who understands that work does not end each day when the afternoon bell rings, who sees the early morning bus lines and the piles of homework to correct, the care you provide to each sick student and the extra granola bars you keep on hand, because someone might come to school hungry… A president who matches your dedication to his.

“That person is my husband, Joe Biden. He knows what educators endure every day. He respects us. He empowers us. And he will never stop fighting for us,” they can read in excerpts from the speech by the first lady. “You saw him four years ago when you trusted him, and he never took it for granted.”

The first lady is expected to declare that the president has kept his 2020 campaign promises, including “safely” reopening schools after the COVID peak, expanding access to mental health for students and The passage of the first major gun safety legislation in 30 years.

The campaign is planning several Educators for Biden-Harris events over the next few days, starting with events in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada; Concord, New Hampshire; and Lansing, Michigan. They add that the plan will target all battleground states over the coming weeks.

Jill Biden, whom the campaign calls “America’s First Teacher,” is the nation’s first first lady to hold a paid job outside the White House, working as an English professor at Virginia Community College since 2009. She also worked full-time during his tenure. eight years as second lady in the Obama-Biden administration.

The campaign sees their Educators for Biden-Harris project as a new opportunity for them to draw a contrast between Biden and former President Donald Trump, who called for abolishing the Department of Education.

Teachers unions support Biden, amplify their message

The presidents of the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (NFT) will join the first lady Friday in Bloomington for her remarks at the Education Minnesota convention. Both national teachers unions supported Biden last year.

Together, the groups have nearly five million members combined with local affiliates in all 50 states, the Biden-Harris campaign said, adding: “96% of NEA members and more than 90% of AFT members voted in 2020.”

The campaign said it would build on its Educators for Biden-Harris launch with digital and on-the-ground organizing efforts to directly engage educators and parents. And, alongside the AFT and NEA, the campaign will organize door-to-door canvassing, phone and text banks, and back-to-school events, some of which have already begun.

For its part, the NEA created a candidate comparison tool in English and Spanish that highlights policy differences between the parties’ presumptive nominees, including how Trump has proposed cutting federal funding for public education when he was in office and proposed eliminating funding for loan forgiveness programs in an overhaul. -elected.

The union has already launched a 10-question “Biden-Harris Public Education Quiz” that tests users on the Biden administration’s record “on supporting public education and unions,” touting accomplishments ranging from expanding free school meals to 30 million students to approving more than $137. billion in student debt relief.