‘Such a Connecticut guy’
Coworkers, friends reflect on nation’s next education secretary: Cardona
In a May 2017 interview with his alma mater, the University of Connecticut, Miguel Cardona was asked where he saw himself in the future.
Without hesitation, Cardona said he planned to continue his role in Meriden.
It was a fair assumption. “I enjoy what I do and love that it is in the same community in which I live,” Cardona said.
Meriden, a small urban city of 59,000, is where he grew up, started a teaching career and
was raising his family.
At that moment, he was content serving as an assistant schools superintendent, focused on drop-out rates, teacher quality and getting more Black and brown students across the graduation finish line — the same one he crossed in 1993.
Meriden is a city teeming with residents who grew up together and now work side by side, many in the school system of 8,600 students.
So on Wednesday, as Cardona sat on a Wilmington, Del., stage, listening as president-elect Joe Biden introduced him as his pick for the next U.S. secretary of education, Cardona was probably grateful his phone was on silent. He was getting text messages of congratulation from friends like Meriden Mayor Kevin Scarpati.
“He didn’t respond,” said Scarpati, who was watching the 11:30 a.m. C-SPAN announcement back in Meriden.
So the mayor started using his phone to snap pictures of his friend on the television screen. They would catch up later.
Dan Crispino, a Meriden school system administrator, was watching the speech with Cardona’s cousin Dave. He used his phone to text principals across the district to make sure they were tuned in.
“I told them anyone not invigorated after hearing that speech was in the wrong profession,” said Crispino, another Meriden native. “He nailed it. The thing about Dr. Cardona is that he means what he says.”
Meriden proud
Cardona, 45, used his speech to not only introduce himself to the nation but pay homage to his family and community.
He mentioned his parents, Hector and Sara; the grandparents who made their way from Aguada, Puerto Rico, to Connecticut; his wife Marissa and two teenage children, Miguel Jr. and Celine.
“I was born in the Yale Acres housing projects,” Cardona said.
He and his siblings attended public school. His dad was a police officer known for his handlebar mustache and running the local Puerto Rican festival.
Cardona, who graduated from H.C. Wilcox Technical High School in the city, was the first in his family to graduate college: Central Connecticut State University, where he earned a teaching degree, then the University of Connecticut, where he has collected four degrees, including a doctorate.
“(A) favorite moment for me was being hooded and earning my doctorate,” he told an audience at UConn in 2017. “I remember filling up a school bus with family and driving up to Storrs, Conn., for my graduation.”
He continued serving on the adjunct faculty at UConn’s Neag School of Education until he was tapped to be Connecticut’s commissioner of education in 2019.
By then, he had risen from fourth grade teacher to principal to an assistant schools superintendent in Meriden. Along the
way, in 2012, he was named Connecticut’s Principal of the Year.
“He was always so fun,” said Elsie Torres Brown, a Meriden native who was a first-grade teacher when Cardona was principal at Hanover Elementary School.
“Every year, the staff would transform the cafeteria into a theme,” said Brown, recalling how Cardona would always dress the part of the theme. One year, he was a pirate.
“The kids loved it,” said Brown, now an assistant superintendent in East Hartford. “He is just a really humble, positive leader who is just all about the kids.”
Torres called it shocking, but not surprising, that Cardona is now nominated to take over the U.S. Department of Education.
“I think all the people who know Miguel just know he was just built to do great things,” Brown said.
The task ahead
During his time as commissioner, Cardona focused on closing opportunity gaps and building a more diverse teacher workforce while trying to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.
In Washington, U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., said Cardona will be called on to strengthen an education system that leaves too many Black and brown students behind and help students recover from a year of disrupted learning.
“Commissioner Cardona has a full understanding of the need for full equity in education and his commitment to students and public education is a welcome shift, especially during these times,” said Hayes, a former Waterbury history teacher and the 2016 National Teacher of the Year.
“I am excited this vital role will be filled by a fellow educa
tor from my home state,” Hayes added.
Cardona reportedly caught the attention of the Biden transition team through nationally known educator Linda Darling Hammond, who helped vet secretary candidates. The two worked together on a national achievement gap panel.
Up for the job
As proud as she is that a guy from her home town is headed to Washington, Gwen Samuel, a parent advocate from Meriden, said it caused her mixed feelings.
“When they told us Miguel, I said, ‘Our Miguel?’ ” Samuel said.
Samuel said she is glad someone who listens to parents — someone not part of the political rhetoric — has been tapped as the nation’s education leader. On the flip side, she said the nomination seemed to come out of the blue in much the same way Cardona edged out a front-run
ner two years ago for the state commissioner of education post.
“He’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong,” Samuel said. “He listens. That’s his strength.”
Yet she worries that after just 18 months in the role as commissioner — much of that spent dealing with a pandemic — he is now going to face challenges far beyond what is presented in Connecticut.
Meriden Schools Superintendent Mark Benigni, another city native, isn’t worried.
“Biden is looking for him to do on a national level what was done in Connecticut,” Benigni said. “It is a model to follow.”
Gov. Ned Lamont said he’s always felt Cardona was sort of a “best-kept secret.”
“And now the entire country will understand why,” Lamont said. “We are proud of our Connecticut son as he joins the Biden-Harris administration.”
Benigni said the Miguel he met growing up in Meriden is the same guy who is going to
lead the nation’s education system.
In part, Benigni credits the city.
“We have something special here,” said Benigni, who was once Meriden’s mayor. “We are a great reflection of the real world. We are a diverse community that takes care of their own.”
Crispino, who has garnered awards of his own — as a principal, his school went from failing to winning a federal Blue Ribbon award — said Cardona’s jump to a national stage brings validation to the work being done locally.
“This puts Meriden in a national light,” Crispino said.
Unlike the mayor, Crispino said he waited until after Cardona’s Delaware speech to send him a text.
It was pay back.
“On Dec. 19, my birthday, he texted me,” Crispino said. “I remember saying to my wife: ‘A guy in running for secretary of education takes the time to send a text to say ‘Happy birthday bro.’ ’ ”
Ansonia Schools Superintendent Joe DiBacco, a lifelong Meriden resident who graduated from Platt Technical High School in Milford the same year as Cardona’s wife Marissa, said his hometown has always been a cultural and ethnic melting pot.
“We shared food together, played sports together,” DiBacco said. “Seeing Miguel now elevated (to a national post) just opens up the possibilities for students to see people like them in positions of influence.”
Invited to Ansonia in his commissioner’s role, Cardona came not once, but twice to check on the distribution of laptops and connectivity once the pandemic forced learning to go remote last spring, DiBacco said.
“A lot of time people elevate and forget,” DiBacco said. “He doesn’t forget.”