Obama focuses latest jobs pitch on hiring teachers

Unwilling to concede that his jobs act has no chance of passage, President Obama on Tuesday breaks out a new weapon: a laid-off single mother who wants nothing more than to go back to teaching public schoolchildren.

Obama will stump for the part of his jobs plan that would rehire unemployed educators — like Kimberly Russell, the laid-off social studies teacher who will introduce him on stage when he speaks in Dallas in the afternoon.

Just a day ago, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the president’s proposal was dead, at least in its current $447-billion iteration.

Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden will be visiting an elementary school in Florida that has lost teachers due to budget cuts.

In addition, the White House plans to release a report Tuesday outlining how the administration’s efforts, including the jobs act, would help improve schools and the economy.

And at Eastfield College in Texas,, Obama will appear alongside Russell to talk about his plan to put teachers back in the classroom, and how Republicans don’t support it.

While he’s at it, Obama will be trying to raise money, both in Dallas and at a stop in St. Louis. Campaign officials are trying to make up for losses they say they incurred over the summer, when Obama was engaged in debt ceiling talks and rarely left the capital.

christi.parsons@latimes.com