Biden picks Latino schools chief from Conn. to be education sec’y

He grew up speaking Spanish in Connecticut public schools, rose to lead the state’s education department — and now has been picked to lead national education policy.

Dr. Miguel Cardona on Wednesday became President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to be the next secretary of education.

The trailblazer said his background in the classroom and in life makes him uniquely qualified for the job as he vowed to lead U.S. schools out of the bleakness of the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit students as hard as anyone.

“It’s our privilege to do the most American thing possible — to forge opportunity out of crisis,” Cardona said at a Wilmington, Del., press conference with Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

Cardona paid tribute to his grandparents, who came to Connecticut from Puerto Rico in search of opportunity, and his parents who raised him speaking Spanish at home in Meriden.

Cardona attended Connecticut public schools and later become a teacher and principal in the same classrooms that he learned in as a child.

“That is the power of America,” Cardona said. “I am American as apple pie and as American as rice and beans.”

Picking Cardona delivers on Biden’s promise to nominate an education secretary with deep roots in public schools.

In announcing his nomination, Biden said Cardona would offer America “an experienced and dedicated public schoolteacher leading the way at the Department of Education.”

“He’s someone who gets that public education isn’t just what we do as a nation,” Biden said. “It’s who we are.”