Biden: Cardona right pick to lead education through pandemic

PresidentWILMINGTON, DEL. — Joe Biden introduced Miguel Cardona as his pick for education secretary on Wednesday, saying Connecticut’s education chief and life-long champion of public schools is the right pick to lead the department as thenation struggles toeducate students safely during the pandemic.

The selection delivers on Biden’s promise to nominate someone with experience working in public education and would fulfill his goal of installing an education chief who stands in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Unlike DeVos, a school choice advocatewhomBiden says is an opponent of public schools, Cardona is a productof them, startingwhenhe entered kindergartenunable to speak English.

During remarks inWilmington, Delaware, Biden called Cardona a “brilliant” educator who would help further his administration’s commitment to re-opening schools safely.

“We can do it if we give school districts, communities and states the clear guidance and resources that aren’t already in their tight budgets,” Biden said, adding that addressing the issue “requires someone who understands the need to prevent the pandemic from further exacerbating the inequities in our education system.”

Early next year, Biden said he’d send to Congress a plan on next steps for the education system, including funding to keep educators employed and safely reopen schools.

In introducing Cardona, Biden noted his focus to broaden remote learning acrosscommunities in need and ensure schools in his state had appropriate safety gear.

“That’s the vision, resolve and initiative that are all going to help us contain this pandemic and reopen our schools safely,” Biden said. “It’s a standard of care that comes fromhaving taught in a classroom. ... He is a secretary of education for this moment.”

Cardona, 45, was raised in a housing project inMeriden, Connecticut, andwent through the city’s public schools before returning to work as a fourth-grade teacher inthe district in 1998. At age 28, he had become the youngest principal in the state beforeworking his way up to assistant superintendent of the district.

Referencinghis immigrant grandparents and bicultural upbringing, Cardona several times made comments in in Spanish.

“I, being bilingual and bicultural, am as American as apple pie and rice and beans,” a background he said giveshimperspectiveon howto address the nation’s education inequalities.

“I know how challenging this year has been for students, for educators and for parents. I’ve lived those challenges alongside millions of American families,” Cardona said. “It’s taken some of our most painful longstanding disparities and wrenched them open even wider.”

Cardona was appointed to the top education post in Connecticut just months before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March. When schools moved to remote learning, he hurried to deliver more than 100,000 laptops to students across the state. Since then, however, he has increasingly pressed schools to reopen, saying it’s harmful to keep students at home.