Biden poised to pick Connecticut schools chief Miguel Cardona as Education secretary, reports say

Joey Garrison, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden is poised to nominate Miguel Cardona, the education commissioner of Connecticut, as secretary of the Department of Education, multiple media outlets reported, choosing a major proponent of reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic.

Cardona, 45, would lead Biden's goal to reopen all public schools in the first 100 days of his administration if confirmed by the U.S. Senate. His pick would also add another Latino to Biden's increasingly diverse Cabinet.

The expected hire marks a rapid rise for Cardona, who has served as Connecticut's education chief for just 16 months after working as a public school educator for two decades in Meriden, Conn.

State Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona speaks with Berlin High School students while on a tour of the school on Jan. 28, 2020. Cardona met with students to hear about the issues they face and visited classrooms at the high school and Griswold Elementary School.
State Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona speaks with Berlin High School students while on a tour of the school on Jan. 28, 2020. Cardona met with students to hear about the issues they face and visited classrooms at the high school and Griswold Elementary School.

On the campaign trail, Biden pledged to choose a teacher to lead the nation's schools.

Leslie Fenwick, dean emeritus and professor at Howard University, was widely seen as a another top contender for the position.

CNN, the Washington Post and Politico reported Biden is poised to pick Cardona. The Biden transition team has not announced the selection, nor would they confirm Cardona is the choice.

More: Betsy DeVos vowed to change American education. For the most part, she didn’t.

Cardona: 'In-person education is too important'

Cardona is not perceived to be directly aligned with the teachers unions or pro-school choice education reformers when it comes to the nation's education policy wars.

Cardona will take over the department as America’s students – and their schools and colleges – are reeling from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Cardona has argued little evidence exists of COVID-19 transmisison within schools, according to the Hartford Courant, and stressed the social, emotional and educational benefits of in-person classes.

“In-person education is too important for our children to disrupt their education further," Cardona wrote in a letter to Connecticut school superintendents in November, "unless and until local conditions specifically dictate the need to do so."

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden (seated at table) and his wife Jill Biden attend a virtual meeting on school reopening at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sept. 2, 2020.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden (seated at table) and his wife Jill Biden attend a virtual meeting on school reopening at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sept. 2, 2020.

The nation’s education systems have lacked clear federal guidance for how and when to reopen classrooms, and how and when to take learning remote. Students across the country are falling behind academically without in-person education. And payments and interest on the nation’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio are on hold until a few days after Biden becomes president, awaiting a policy decision from the new education secretary as the economic fallout of the pandemic continues.

Student loan stimulus: Freeze on payments, interest extended through January as COVID-19 cases surge

Cardona served as assistant superintendent in Meriden Public Schools from 2013 until Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, appointed him education commissioner in August 2019. Previously, Cardona worked as a principal for 10 years, in which he was named Connecticut's Principal of the Year in 2012, and an elementary school teacher

Cardona, the son of Puerto Rican immigrants, was raised in public housing in Meriden. The CT Mirror reported that as assistant superintendent Cardona would take new teachers on tours of the city's neighborhoods so they could understand the diversity of their students.

“There were times throughout my youth that I think people had lower expectations than they should have," Cardona said. "It just made me hungrier.”

Undoing Betsy DeVos' work

Under President Donald Trump, the Education secretary became an especially high-profile – and controversial – position. Trump’s secretary, Betsy DeVos, polled as the least popular member of his Cabinet, capturing headlines for her support of school choice and guns in school and for her opposition to many proposals for student loan relief.

Biden had indicated his Education secretary would have experience as a public school educator, a not-so-veiled dig at DeVos’ background as a billionaire philanthropist. He also vowed to undo many of the policies DeVos put in place. Those earmarked for overhaul include DeVos’ stricter rules for investigations of sexual misconduct at schools and colleges, plus her looser guidelines benefiting for-profit colleges.

Under Biden and Cardona, the federal government’s support is expected to de-emphasize school choice and embrace an agenda that is "pointedly public-school friendly,” said Amy Jackson, vice president of learning and development at Illuminate Education, a school-improvement group.

That said, Education secretaries are limited in their power over America’s schools education because of the long history of local control in the U.S. Most of the policies and practices in public schools, where about 90% of children receive an education, are determined by school boards, state lawmakers and state departments of education. In fact, as Trump’s education secretary, DeVos failed in many of her efforts to expand school choice options for great swaths of America’s children.

What the education secretary does have is a bully pulpit – a megaphone to trumpet the president's ideals and priorities.

Contributing: Chris Quintana, Alia Wong, Erin Richards

Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Miguel Cardona is Joe Biden's pick as education secretary: reports

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