Joe Biden picked Connecticut Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona as his Education secretary.
I give Cardona credit for one thing. He has emphasized the importance of in-person school. He wants kids back in schools as soon as possible:
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.”
Biden wants to reopen schools in his first 100 days, but he said a few words that scare me: “If Congress provides the funding.” So schools can only reopen if Congress provides the funding?
But Biden made it known he wants to undo DeVos’s policies, which include “stricter rules for investigations of sexual misconduct at schools and colleges, plus her looser guidelines benefiting for-profit colleges.”
Cardona also means more emphasis on public schools instead of school choice, but there are limits:
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.
Cardona will face pressure to stick to other promises from Biden. These include tuition-free public college “for families making less than $125,000 annually and restore Obama-era civil rights guidelines that the Trump administration rescinded.”
Biden also “supported legislation to forgive borrowers’ first $10,000 in student loans.” He has not committed to supporting “canceling student debt by administrative fiat,” which the far-left wants to happen.
Biden promised to nominate a teacher for the position. Cardona began his career as a fourth-grade teacher and then became an elementary school principal.
Cardona became Connecticut’s education commissioner in August 2019.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY