Today Congress will meet to certify the electoral college vote and confirm Joe Biden as our next president. Biden’s election guarantees Betsy DeVos’s exit as Secretary of Education.
It looks as though, by nominating Dr. Miguel Cardona, currently Connecticut’s state Commissioner of Education, President-Elect Biden has fulfilled the prediction of satirist Andy Borowitz (in his funniest Borowitz Report for the year): “Betsy DeVos warns that Biden will pick Education Secretary with background in education… ‘In order to be impartial toward education, an Education Secretary must be as ignorant as possible,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to boast, but I am going to be a tough act to follow in that respect.'”
Dr. Cardona is definitely someone with a strong background in public education. He has devoted his career to serving public schools. In his acceptance remarks, Cardona describes his life work: “I was blessed to attend public schools in my hometown of Meriden, Connecticut, where I was able to expand my horizons, become the first in my family to graduate college, and become a teacher, principal, and assistant superintendent in the same community that gave me so much. That is the power of America—in two generations. And I, being bilingual and bicultural, am as American as apple pie and rice and beans.”
For Inside Higher Education, Kery Murakami describes Cardona’s credentials: “Cardona’s background is primarily in elementary and secondary education. In 2003, Cardona, then 28, CONTINUE READING: What Do We Know about Our Next Education Secretary, Dr. Miguel Cardona?, | janresseger
