President-elect Joe Biden announced Tuesday he will nominate Miguel Cardona, Connecticut’s education commissioner and a former teacher and public school principal, to be the next secretary of education. Cardona would replace U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has led the department for nearly four years and did not have a background as an educator when she took over the Department of Education in 2017. Cardona was appointed Connecticut’s top K-12 official in August of last year by Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat. Cardona worked as an elementary school teacher in Connecticut and served as a principal for 10 years in the Meriden, Conn., school district, according to his biography on the state education department’s website. In announcing his selection of Cardona, Biden said in a statement, “He will help us address systemic inequities, tackle the mental health crisis in our education system, give educators a well-deserved raise, ease the burden of education debt, and secure high-quality, universal pre-K for every three- and four year-old in the country.”

Click here for full article.

Source: Education Week By Andrew Ujifusa & Evie Blad  December 22, 2020. (Subscription may be required.)