How Biden's stimulus plan could impact education

Yahoo Finance's Reggie Wade joins Sibile Marcellus to discuss what President-elect Biden's stimulus proposal means for education.

Video Transcript

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. Let's take a look at what's happening in the markets. All three major indices are in the red, the DOW down about 82 points, the NASDAQ down 32 points, and the S&P down 13 points. Now as we know, Wall Street is weighing incoming President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus plan.

And a key part of that is $170 billion that's going to be set aside to help teachers, and students, and schools recover from the pandemic. I want to bring in Yahoo Finance's Reggie Wade to break it all down for us. Reggie, how much money exactly beyond the $170 billion is going towards helping the schools? And what's been the reaction from the education world?

REGGIE WADE: Well, right now we know that $170 billion is what would be initially allocated. President-elect Biden said last night that in the coming days he would elaborate more on his Build Back Better plan. But he said that $170 billion would be used to do-- and the administration would do everything they could to get educators and students safely back into schools.

And his goal is to have a majority of the K through eight schools in this nation open within his first 100 days in office. The President-elect also said that these funds would provide for additional testing, provide for cleaning services and sanitation services in schools, and the purchase of more PPE equipment and ventilation systems that a lot of schools around the country do not have and desperately need to fight this virus.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Well Reggie, I know that you've been covering schools and the impact the pandemic has had on them. Now looking at what Biden has pretty much laid out, do you think it's going to make a difference? Is this really what schools needed at this point?

REGGIE WADE: Yes it is. I've talked to many teachers, many superintendents across the country, and they say we need more resources. A lot of parents say, listen. We need help. A lot of single parents need to get back out in the workforce. And the way they do it is to have a safe place for their children to go. And that would be the school building.

So I think that it would go a long way to opening these up because that's pretty much what most Americans want. They want children back in school. The President-elect, the vice President-elect says that's a priority. Children need to get back to school.

And I spoke with Becky Pringle. She's the president of the National Education Association. And she applauded President Biden's speech and said that the nation's largest teachers-- the nation's largest union is ready to work with the new administration. So I think this would be met with mainly positivity.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Absolutely. Definitely met with positivity. The question I have is when it comes to reopening the schools, what about teachers? Have they expressed concern to you when you've covered this-- you covered these stories, teachers wanting to also get access to the vaccine before having to return to the classroom if they weren't in the classroom because of the pandemic.

REGGIE WADE: Yes. Most of the teachers I've spoken with said that they want to get the vaccine, they want to get back in the classroom, they want to get back safely. But another big portion about this, during normal times teachers go out of their pocket for many of their supplies. And it's just expanded during this crisis. Many teachers have had to buy PPE equipment because their districts simply don't have the funds they need for this. So with this $170 billion, I think a lot of teachers are going to be relieved that they can now stop coming out of their pocket for the essential equipment.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Yeah, $170 billion That's huge. But at the same time, it does have to actually become legislation that incoming President Joe Biden signs. And then all those funds have to be distributed. So we've still got a long way to go, Reggie, right?

REGGIE WADE: Yes. Yes we do.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: All right. Well, we'll definitely have to have you back on, Reggie, to talk some more about this. Thanks so much.

REGGIE WADE: Thank you