WASHINGTON — In his first policy rollout as a 2020 presidential hopeful, former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday will propose tripling a federal education funding for needy school districts with an eye toward raising teacher salaries and making new school construction a priority component of his infrastructure plan.

Biden’s education agenda also includes a plan to double the number of psychologists, counselors, social workers and other health professionals in schools while guaranteeing universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds.

Releasing the education blueprint marks a turn toward specifics for Biden after more than a month in which he focused on laying out the rationale for his candidacy: Framing it as a battle for the soul of the nation.

He plans to discuss his education plan in Houston alongside his wife, Jill, a community college professor, at a town hall-style event hosted by the American Federation of Teachers on Tuesday afternoon. Biden will be the sixth Democratic hopeful to participate in an AFT town hall as the influential union weighs a potential endorsement.

In addition to a three-fold increase in funding for Title I schools — those serving a certain percentage of students below the poverty level — and an emphasis bricks-and-mortar infrastructure, the Biden campaign is including gun safety proposals under the education umbrella.

His campaign says he’ll call for again banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Those policies were part of the 1994 crime bill he authored and which has been a target for both his Democratic rivals and more recently President Trump.

Biden is also proposing grants to help school districts diversify their student bodies – noteworthy given his vocal advocacy in his early Senate tenure against busing to desegregate public schools. He also will seek to allow Pell grants to be used for so-called dual enrollment programs to allow high school students to earn credits at community colleges.

What the plan does not include is how Biden would fund these initiatives. Since announcing his candidacy, Biden has called for undoing tax cuts championed by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, and closing capital gains loopholes that could fund free community college.