President-elect Donald Trump wants to abolish the government agency that runs the country’s public schools, but Miguel Cardona, who went from teaching fourth grade to serving as President Joe Biden’s education secretary, vehemently defended it.
Cardona, the first Latino commissioner of education in Connecticut, is a first-generation Puerto Rican. He is cautioning against Trump’s promise to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and let each state manage education on its own as he gets ready to leave the agency. The Senate must ratify Trump’s appointment of former wrestling executive Linda McMahon to head the department.
Students’ rights and opportunities are safeguarded when the federal Department of Education is protected. Otherwise, not everyone would have the same chance to achieve in this nation, and you’re going to have systems that look quite different in different states,” Cardona, one of Biden’s four Hispanic Cabinet members, stated.
In a New York City interview with NBC News this week, Cardona stated that he is extremely proud to have been a member of “an administration that looks like America” and to have collaborated with a group of individuals that “come from the classroom.”
For a long time, state and municipal governments have been in charge of education, establishing regulations and allocating the majority of school funds. The government agency oversees federal grant programs, gives billions of dollars in additional money to K–12 schools in high poverty, and pays for the education of students with disabilities, even though it has no say in most school policies or curriculum. It also sets rules for institutions to participate in the $1.6 trillion federal student loan program.
The Education Department is entrusted with evaluating student progress nationally and creating strategies to enhance education according to a congressional mandate. In order to further that goal, it also gathers data on staffing, school crime, enrollment, and other subjects.
For Cardona, the department’s primary responsibility is to enforce civil rights laws in order to stop discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. This, in his opinion, is a major justification for protecting the department.
Cardona stated, “We don’t want to go backwards.”
According to him, there are over 65 million kids in this nation who require civil rights protection and who require a department that can ensure that funds are going to the appropriate place.
According to Cardona, students require advice from their states and districts on how to help children, particularly with regard to tackling mental health issues and school violence. That’s what we do. We offer that assistance.
Trump’s transition team spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, told NBC News in a statement that the president-elect “believes that school choice is the civil rights issue of our time” and will “ensure all families have access to a great education, no matter their zip code.”
“Trump will improve academic excellence for all students,” according to the statement, “by increasing access to school choice, empowering parents to have a voice in their child s education, supporting good teachers, and returning education back to the states where it belongs.”
A look back
During Cardona’s tenure as education secretary, the nation struggled with a number of crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the campaign for student loan relief, and the termination of affirmative action.
More than half of the country’s schools were closed when Cardona took power. “People forget that,” he remarked, recalling the nine months he spent trying to reopen them.
The pandemic and the yearlong lockdown had a negative impact on students’ mental health, so the Education Department hired more than 16,000 social workers and counselors to help.
Among his finest accomplishments, according to Cardona, were expanding Pell Grants and federal scholarships, allowing over 5 million individuals access to such resources, and erasing more than $176 billion in student loan debt.
Courts have repeatedly prevented the Biden administration from enacting its one-time student loan forgiveness proposal, which would have allowed more than 40 million students to have up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt canceled. Therefore, the administration offered debt relief through four current debt cancellation programs: the income-driven repayment plan, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, the Total and Permanent Disability Discharge Plan, and the early forgiveness of the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan.
Cardona fears that these initiatives may eventually be dismantled, claiming that they have enabled “people to go to college, buy homes, and move on with their life.”
Cardona, a former teacher and public sector worker, said he was finding some comfort in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program’s increased debt forgiveness for public servants who had been repaying their loans for ten years or more. “This was something that waspassed by Republicans and Democrats in 2007,” added the politician.
“We provided debt relief to people that earned debt relief, and I’m proud of that because a lot of people challenge that,” Cardona stated. “The same people that didn’t complain when we bailed out an airline industry or we bailed out banks; we were bailing out working-class Americans who work hard.”
Cardona stated in an interview with NBC News NOW on Wednesday that “firefighters, police officers, veterans; everyone that we called essential four years ago are benefiting from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.” He also mentioned that many of the public employees who received debt relief are “people we said we need in our classrooms” during COVID.
“No other administration has come close to the debt relief that we provided and fixing a broken system,” added the president.
‘Good trouble’
“There’s going to be a period of rain before the rainbow comes out” in terms of American education, Cardona cautioned.
“Students of color, who have historically been overlooked in admissions processes, have less access than they did three years ago,” Cardona stated, referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling that prohibits the use of race as a determining factor in admissions at selective schools and universities. “It’s going to make us less competitive as a nation when only some of our students have access to higher education.”
Cardona claims that prior state-level prohibitions of racial affirmative action have provided the nation with a preview of what might happen if the practice were outlawed nationwide.
Even when other characteristics, like class, were given more weight, study revealed that enrollment of students from underrepresented populations decreased in the nine states where bans were implemented.
Cardona stated that it is likely to occur in this nation.
Cardona said he stares at a rubber bracelet that says “good trouble,” which he wears on his right hand in remembrance of the late Representative John Lewis, D-Ga., who was a well-known civil rights activist.
When he was younger, he battled to secure the liberties that students were denied. He made many sacrifices so that our nation may advance,” Cardona stated. “Yes, a dark period is upon us, one in which they seek to abolish affirmative action and shut down the Department of Education. However, like Congressman John Lewis, we must unite as a nation and stand up for our values.”
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