The Senate voted Monday to confirm Miguel Cardona as education secretary, paving the way to lead President Joe Biden in his bid to reopen the country’s schools amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Cardona, 45, a former public school teacher who later became Connecticut’s education leader, was approved with 64-33 votes.
He takes charge of the Education Department amid mounting tension between Americans who believe students can now safely return to class and others who say the risks are still too great.
While his position has limited authority to force schools to reopen, Cardona will be asked to play a pivotal role in achieving Biden’s goal of having a majority of primary schools open five days a week within its first 100 days. He will be tasked with guiding schools through the reopening process and sharing best practices on how to teach during a pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a roadmap last month to get students back into classrooms safely. The agency said masks, social detachment and other strategies should be used, but teacher vaccination was not a prerequisite for reopening.
Cardona, who received attention for his efforts to reopen schools in Connecticut, has vowed to make reopening schools his top priority. During his Senate hearing last month, he said there are “great examples in our country of schools that have been safely reopened.”
The debate has turned into a political firefight for Biden, who is caught between conflicting interests as he tries to get students into the classroom without provoking the powerful teacher unions that have placed him in the White House. He says his goal of getting students back to class will be possible if Congress approves his aid plan, which includes $ 130 billion for the national schools.
Republicans have rebuked Biden for not reopening schools any faster, while teacher unions oppose the government’s decision to proceed with federally required standardized testing during the pandemic.
However, the tricky terrain is nothing new to Cardona, who faced the same thrill while navigating the Connecticut pandemic, and has received early praise from even Biden’s critics.
Republicans in Congress have applauded Cardona’s efforts to reopen Connecticut schools, and some see him as a potential ally in their support for charter schools. Teachers, meanwhile, consider him a partner who brings years of experience in education and knows the demands of education.
The nomination continues a rapid rise for Cardona, who was appointed to head Connecticut’s education department in 2019 after working 20 years in Meriden, Connecticut, public schools – the same district where he lived as a child.
He began his career as a fourth-grade teacher before becoming the youngest director of the state at the age of 28. In 2012, he was named Connecticut’s director of the year and became the district’s assistant inspector in 2015. When he was appointed a state education commissioner, he became the first Latino to hold the post.
Cardona grew up in a public housing project in Meriden, raised by parents who came to Connecticut from Puerto Rico as children. During his career, he has focused on closing educational gaps and supporting bilingual education. It’s a personal problem for Cardona, who says he only spoke Spanish when he started kindergarten and struggled to learn English.
Cardona was the first in his family to graduate from college, and his three degrees include a doctorate in education from the University of Connecticut. He and his wife, Marissa, have two children in high school.
His deep roots in public education met the criteria Biden was looking for in an education secretary. During his campaign, Biden promised to choose a secretary with experience in public education. It was intended to contrast with then-secretary Betsy DeVos, a Michigan billionaire who advocated school choice policies for decades.
In an increasingly fractionated world of education, Cardona has vowed to be a unifier. At his confirmation hearing, he pledged to engage with “the vast, diverse community of people with an interest in education.” He added, “We get strength by working together.”
While he works to help schools reopen, he will also be tasked with helping them address the damage the pandemic has wreaked on student learning. He reiterates Biden’s call for funding for further education, saying schools should expand summer academic programs and hire more counselors to help students with mental health problems.
He will also likely face an early test as he weighs how much flexibility to grant states as they run standardized tests. Last week, the Department of Education ordered states to proceed with annual testing, but said reviews could be offered online or delayed until the fall. The agency also suggested that states could be given “additional flexibility in judgment” in certain cases.
Some states are already pushing for that extra flexibility, including Michigan, which calls for state testing to be replaced with local ‘benchmark’ assessments conducted this year. It is up to Cardona to decide how much leniency to offer.
Republicans have also paved the way for a fight for transgender athletes. At last month’s hearing, Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., Objected to policies that allow transgender girls to participate in girls’ athletics. It is the subject of a legal battle in Connecticut, where some cisgender athletes are challenging a state policy that allows transgender students to participate as their identified gender.
Under pressure from Paul to take a stand on the matter, Cardona said he would support the right of “all students, including those who are transgender.”