There is less than a month to go before Joe Biden is inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States. Following his previous announcements unveiling his potential Cabinet picks, Biden announced his nomination of Miguel Cardona for Education Secretary.
Biden announced his plans to nominate Cardona on Tuesday to become his Education Secretary. Should Cardona be confirmed by the Senate, he would be taking the lead in the reopening of most public schools in the first 100 days. Cardona would also become another Latino that Biden brings onto his diverse Cabinet. Currently serving as Connecticut’s education commissioner, Cardona was a public school educator in Meriden, Connecticut for 20 years.
“In Miguel Cardona, America will have an experienced and dedicated public school teacher leading the way at the Department of Education,” said Biden in a statement. The president-elect and vice president-elect Kamala Harris will be formally announcing Cardona’s nomination on Wednesday, December 23 at Wilmington, Delaware.
The nomination earned praise from many as Cardona is not affiliated with any teachers’ unions or is an advocate of school choice. Biden also pledged to reverse the policies that outgoing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has implemented such as stricter rules for investigations of sexual harassment in schools and colleges and looser guidelines that benefit for-profit colleges. The Biden administration will likely be focused on embracing a public school-friendly agenda, according to analysts.
Despite the criticism that Cardona has received from the Connecticut Education Association regarding keeping schools open during the pandemic, the union noted his years of experience as a teacher and administrators have been integral in his appointment as the state’s education commissioner.
Once Biden is sworn into the presidency on January 20, 2021, he will also be taking over the official POTUS Twitter account, but not the followers that the account comes with. The Biden-Harris transition team has slammed the social media platform’s move to wipe out the millions of followers of the White House accounts when it is handed over to the new administration. When Trump and his administration took over the official accounts in 2017, they also inherited the millions of followers from the Obama administration.