Last evening the Biden Administration selected Dr. Miguel Cardona, the State Superintendent of Connecticut, as his Secretary of Education.
We congratulate Dr. Cardona who has dedicated his life to public schools–as a public school teacher, principal, central administrator and State Superintendent. We are delighted that the son of parents born in Puerto Rico was chosen for Secretary. His humble beginnings are in stark contrast with those of the present Secretary, Betsy De Vos..
Dr. Cardona is the product of neighborhood public schools. He sends his children to public schools. His life’s work has been immersed in public schools. He did not attend the Broad Academy nor become a Jeb Bush Chief for Change. He has never claimed that three great teachers in a row will cure poverty, nor has he ever said that charter schools are the answer.
Although Dr. Cardona was not NPE’s first choice, we are pleased that none of the four candidates that DFER lobbied for were selected. Thank you to all of you who follow us on Twitter and were willing to push back on our campaign to stop the DFER picks.
Here are Diane’s comments on the selection from her blog today:
Dr. Cardona has not taken a position on the major issues that define the major education policy battles of the past two decades. He has been critical of excessive testing but does not oppose the use of standardized testing on principle. He has been critical of test-based evaluation of teachers (a major element of Race to the Top) because he knows that it doesn’t work. He is neither for nor against charter schools, even though Connecticut experienced some of the worst charter scandals in the nation (think the Jumoke charter chain), is the home base of the Sackler-funded ConnCAN (which morphed into 50CAN, to CONTINUE READING: NPE's Thoughts on the Selection of Miguel Cardona for Secretary of Education - Network For Public Education
