WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden promised to give teachers a pay raise and direct more money to schools that serve low-income children, but those education reforms will have to take a back seat to emergency needs as schools fight to save teacher jobs and close funding gaps during the pandemic.
Education groups say that more than half a million teachers and school personnel have been laid off and more turmoil is on the horizon unless the federal government steps in with emergency funding. Those critical needs must be addressed first, they said, over the more aspirational parts of Biden's education agenda.
Biden's education plan to "give teachers a raise" and "eliminate the funding gap between white and non-white districts" relies on expanding the federal education aid provision known as Title I, which he cannot do without Congress.
