President-elect Joe Biden tapped Miguel Cardona, Connecticut’s top education official, as his choice to head the Department of Education, he announced Tuesday.
Cardona, who was named the state’s top schools official last August and its youngest principal at age 28, would have a number of issues thrown his way from day one, mainly getting children back into the classroom. Biden has warned that “an entire generation is going to lose a year, a year and a half, in terms of their learning ability” due to distance learning, saying he wants students back in the classroom within his first 100 days.
“In Miguel Cardona, America will have an experienced and dedicated public school teacher leading the way at the Department of Education — ensuring that every student is equipped to thrive in the economy of the future, that every educator has the resources they need to do their jobs with dignity and success, and that every school is on track to reopen safely,” Biden said in a statement, CNN reported.
Cardona has been supportive of getting children back into classrooms, arguing that online learning was contributing to students falling behind, according to CNN.
He was born in Connecticut to Puerto Rican parents and grew up in public housing. He began his career as a fourth grade teacher, which fulfills a promise Biden made during the campaign.
In the role, Cardona would be tasked with undoing a lot of what Betsy DeVos implemented during her four-year tenure in the Trump administration.
The Biden administration has signaled its intent to restore the Obama-era civil rights guidance, rescinded under DeVos, that allowed students to use the school bathroom of their choice and reinstitute further Obama-era guidance about the disproportionate disciplining of minority students, according to the New York Times.
The other major aspect of DeVos’s tenure that Cardona would likely attempt to scrap involves the rules pertaining to sexual misconduct claims on college campuses.
Biden promised to select a diverse Cabinet and has filled most of it thus far. So far, he has nominated Antony Blinken for secretary of state, Janet Yellen for secretary of the treasury, and Gen. Lloyd Austin for secretary of defense, among a handful of other picks. His outstanding Cabinet picks include who will serve as attorney general, secretary of commerce, and secretary of labor.
He tapped longtime confidant Ron Klain to be his chief of staff, who previously served in the same position for the first two years of Biden’s vice presidency.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, his campaign manager, was recently named as his deputy chief of staff, and former Obama deputy ethics counsel Dana Remus will return as White House counsel. Steve Ricchetti will be a presidential adviser, and Mike Donilon a senior adviser. Biden also named Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond to be his public engagement director, and Julie Rodriguez will direct the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Annie Tomasini will be the Oval Office operations director.
First lady Jill Biden is a professor at a community college and a member of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union.
UPDATE: This article has been updated to reflect that Biden has officially nominated Cardona as secretary of the Education Department.
