Biden picks Miguel Cardona as education secretary

President-elect Joe Biden introduced Miguel Cardona as his pick for education secretary on Wednesday, saying Connecticut's education chief and life-long champion of public schools is right pick to le department as nation struggles to educate students safely during pandemic.

selection delivers on Biden's promise to minate someone with experience working in public education and would fulfill his goal of installing an education chief who stands in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Unlike DeVos, a school choice vocate whom Biden says is an opponent of public schools, Cardona is a product of m, starting when he entered kindergarten unable to speak English.

During remarks in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden called Cardona a "brilliant" educator who would help furr his ministration's commitment to re-opening schools safely.

"We can do it if we give school districts, communities and states clear guidance and resources that aren't alrey in ir tight budgets," Biden said, ding that dressing issue "requires someone who understands need to prevent pandemic from furr exacerbating inequities in our education system."

Early next year, Biden said he'd send to Congress a plan on next steps for education system, including funding to keep educators employed and safely reopen schools.

In introducing Cardona, Biden ted his focus to broen remote learning across communities in need and ensure schools in his state h appropriate safety gear.

"That's vision, resolve and initiative that are all going to help us contain this pandemic and reopen our schools safely," Biden said. "It's a standard of care that comes from having taught in a classroom. ... He is a secretary of education for this moment."

Cardona, 45, was raised in a housing project in Meriden, Connecticut, and went through city's public schools before returning to work as a fourth-gre teacher in district in 1998. At 28, he h become youngest principal in state before working his way up to assistant superintendent of district.

Referencing his immigrant grandparents and bicultural upbringing, Cardona several times me comments in in Spanish.

"I, being bilingual and bicultural, am as American as apple pie and rice and beans," a background he said gives him perspective on how to dress nation's education inequalities.

"I kw how challenging this year has been for students, for educators and for parents. I've lived those challenges alongside millions of American families," Cardona said. "It's taken some of our most painful longstanding disparities and wrenched m open even wider."

Cardona was appointed to top education post in Connecticut just months before COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March. When schools moved to remote learning, he hurried to deliver more than 100,000 laptops to students across state. Since n, however, he has increasingly pressed schools to reopen, saying it's harmful to keep students at home.

If confirmed, his first task will be to expand that effort across nation. Biden has pledged to have a majority of U.S. schools reopened within his first 100 days in office. He is promising new federal guidelines on school opening decisions, and a "large-scale" Education Department effort to identify and share best ways to teach during a pandemic.