I’m here to help: first lady Jill Biden sets off on rescue mission

Jill Biden is spearheading the campaign to reopen America’s schools as quickly as possible.

Jill Biden at the Samuel Smith Elementary School in Burlington, New Jersey. Picture: AFP.

Jill Biden is spearheading the campaign to reopen America’s schools as quickly as possible amid signs she intends to be a hands-on first lady both in selling the administration’s achievements and steering policy.

She is visiting schools in two states this week on the administration’s Help is Here tour to ­explain her husband’s $US1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, in particular the $US170bn it earmarks for education and safe ­reopening.

Ms Biden, 69, has travelled more extensively than her husband since they moved into the White House, with a three-day tour of military bases on the west coast in Washington state and California last week and visits to schools in Connecticut and Pennsylvania at the start of the month.

The role of first lady is reinvented by each new incumbent but Ms Biden arrives after an eight-year apprenticeship while her husband was vice-president, seeing how Michelle Obama used her profile to campaign for students from poor backgrounds and push for legislation to fight childhood obesity.

She has revived her main personal campaign from her earlier White House stint: an assistance program for military families she founded with Ms Obama. She is also continuing to teach classes at Northern Virginia Community College — the first first lady to retain an outside job — although this has so far been virtual.

Her enthusiasm for a return to the physical classroom makes her the obvious face of the administration for her husband’s push to reopen primary schools five days a week by the end of his first 100 days.

“What I want you to know is this — we are going to safely open schools,” she told an audience at Samuel Smith Elementary School in Burlington, New Jersey. “We are going to get people back to work. We’re going to lift up the families who are struggling to get by. And we’re going to be stronger than ever. That’s what the American Rescue Plan is all about.

“When schools like Samuel Smith are open full-time and childcare providers are safe and affordable, parents can focus on the careers they love and support their families.”

Although the two biggest teacher unions have backed school reopening there has been resistance from teachers in some areas and demands for better ventilation, full vaccination of staff and smaller classes. The huge spending plan — the largest single cash injection for US schools — aims to address this.

There is also extra money for adult education at community colleges, like the one Ms Biden teaches at, a sector that has suffered in the past because of the priority given to schools.

“She’s got credibility and she’s got legitimacy when it comes to anything related to education and any policy related to school reopening,” Moe Vela, who worked in Mr Biden’s vice-presidential office, said. “She brings not only first-hand experience but also passion — what better person to send out to talk to schools, to teachers, to parents, to students than a first lady who is an educator?”

Martha Parham, of the American Association of Community Colleges, said: “Having someone with firsthand knowledge of community colleges in the White House … leads to programs and services that are really important. Having someone in the White House that understands our needs is obviously beneficial to the sector.”

The first lady’s approval rating is put at 42 per cent by YouGov, with a 25 per cent negative rating giving her a net positive of 17 points. Her approval is strongest with the post-war baby-boomer generation at 51 per cent.

Her school trips are part of the White House Help is Here marketing campaign for the spending plan passed entirely with Democratic votes last week amid Republican criticism that it is too unfocused and packed with left-wing pet projects.

The Times