Biden Urges Go-Slow Path for Schools, Rips Trump Virus ‘Failure’
Biden to Contrast Plan for Schools With Trump’s Push to Reopen
(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden outlined his proposal to reopen schools safely Wednesday as he assailed President Donald Trump for pushing students and teachers to return to classrooms despite the threat from the coronavirus.
Speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden, the Democratic nominee, contrasted his proposal for a gradual reopening that follows public health guidelines with Trump’s demand for resuming in-person classes quickly as a new school year begins.
Biden said schools are facing a national emergency, and he said he would direct FEMA to authorize and guarantee full access to disaster relief and emergency assistance for K-12 schools under the Stafford Act. He called on Trump to bring back congressional leaders to pass emergency funding.
“Let me be clear: If President Trump and his administration had done their jobs early on in this crisis, American schools would be open,” Biden said. “And they’d be open safely.”
Biden slammed Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for failing to contain the virus and not having a plan to ensure students and teachers can return to school safely.
“He’s offered us nothing but failure and delusions from start to finish and American families and our children are paying the price,” he said about Trump.
Addressing the president directly, he added, “Get off Twitter. Invite the leaders of Congress to the Oval Office and do what you boast about – but never seem to actually do — negotiate a deal to help someone other than yourself.”
The Trump campaign dismissed Biden’s comments. “What we didn’t hear was Joe Biden demand that Nancy Pelosi pass the $105 billion the President has requested to help schools reopen safely,” the campaign said in a statement.
Senate Republicans proposed that amount in funding for schools in a measure they put out over the summer, but Democrats want a bigger aid package of $430 billion, including $175 billion for K-12. Negotiations over the proposals have stalled.
Earlier this summer, Biden laid out a plan for reopening schools that called for a nationwide testing and tracing plan, national safety guidelines, emergency funding and assistance from the Department of Education to help schools develop best practices for remote and hybrid learning.
The Trump administration has pushed for schools to reopen fully despite the persistent number of coronavirus cases across the country and more than 185,000 deaths. The president has argued students must return to the classroom to ensure they receive high-quality education and to allow parents to return to work. But health officials have discouraged schools from reopening in areas where the virus is still spreading rapidly.
Before his speech, Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, a longtime teacher, received a briefing from health experts, including Sylvia Burwell, the former secretary of Health and Human Services and now the president of American University, Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the California State Board of Education, and Ingrid Katz, an infectious disease physician.
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