Miguel Cardona served as U.S. Secretary of Education from 2021-2025. Prior to joining the Biden administration, Cardona led the Connecticut Department of Education from 2019-2021 after beginning his career as a teacher and administrator in the Meriden public school system. He currently serves as founder and president of Cardona Solutions, an educational consulting firm.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Harvard Political Review: What do you remember about growing up, the community, and school? Tell us what your life was like?
Miguel Cardona: I was born rich, but without a lot of material possessions, in the working-class community of Meriden, Connecticut. My parents came as youngsters to Meriden from Aguada, Puerto Rico, for better opportunities. I attended the public schools and had a wonderful childhood full of community. There was a large Latino community there, mostly Puerto Rican and immersed in culture. So from an early age, of bicultural and bilingual, which added to the experience and provided a rich childhood that was filled with family, faith, and positive experiences.
HPR: What was your inspiration in pursuing a career in education? Was there a situation that drew you into passion and education?
MC: Education is the vehicle through which I serve. I was raised in a community that gave me a lot, and I felt compelled to serve that same community. I come from a family of public servants; my brother is a law enforcement officer, and my sister was a school social worker in that same community. I became the classroom teacher in that same community, so I look at teaching and education as my way of giving back to the community.
HPR: What do you remember about serving as the commissioner of education in Connecticut?
MC: Serving as commissioner was a really special period in my career, because being a product of the public schools in Connecticut and being the person in charge of overseeing the schools in Connecticut was another way of continuing to serve, but on a greater scale. My intent was to aggressively attack the disparities and access opportunities and outcomes of our students in the state of Connecticut. Connecticut has some of the highest performing districts in the country and some of the lowest performing districts in the country; some of the most affluent communities are 10 minutes away from some of the poorest communities in the country.
It was really important to be unapologetic and intentional about addressing disparities that exist in Connecticut as the commissioner of education. We were well underway, and then got a notice on March 12, 2020, that we’re going to be taking two weeks away, because there was this thing that was getting closer: COVID-19.
HPR: How did your experiences as commissioner prepare you to be Secretary of Education under President Biden?
MC: One of the things that I thought we did well in Connecticut as a team was to become interdependent. During the pandemic, we created a network of professionals that came together with the shared goal of safely reopening our state. I quickly connected with the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, Jeff Zients. We assembled regularly with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, Dr. Fauci, and CDC officials, such as the director, Rochelle Walensky, to come together to ensure that the reopening strategy for the United States relied on what we knew about transmissibility.
The experience of interdependence that I had in Connecticut shaped the way I did business when I got to D.C. to make sure that we were working together within. When I arrived, only 40% to 46% of our schools were open fully across the country. By October, we were up to about 97% because of that strategy. I visited 50 states in four years to ensure that public education is good and all students can benefit from it. As a student that benefited from public education in an economically disadvantaged community, I knew that my presence in D.C. was because of the support that I received in a public school, and it was my responsibility as Secretary of Education to make sure that all students in the country from 2021 to 2025 had access to public schools that could see help them reach their god given potential.
HPR: How were you able to ensure despite the diversity in student needs and district compositions, all schools were equipped to meet students’ needs?
MC: I think the key thing is to recognize strategies that work to solve problems. Oftentimes, we have people working on the same problem, but not talking to each other. One of the things we did early on was develop a repository of free resources for anyone in the country on how to solve certain issues that districts were having: truancy, literacy, access to higher education, [etc].
We brought out examples of what was working in communities throughout the country, whether it’s rural America, large cities, or everything in between. We tried to help create a web of professional learning communities across the country, where we can learn from one another, ensuring that we were advocating for funds to help districts throughout the country address some of those issues. We then made connections between those communities for financial support, but also capacity building, so that they’re not trying to reinvent the wheel that was already used to help students somewhere else.
HPR: What role did nonprofits play in the work you did?
MC: We rely very heavily on our community partners, our community agencies, because at the end of the day, the school should be the hub of the community, but it takes the whole community to help the families right and support the families. We work very closely with national organizations that serve students in the K-12 space, but also in the higher education space. We had a national partnership for student success that brought in around 150,000 volunteers, tutors, [and] mentors into our schools. We counted on AmeriCorps, the Boys and Girls Club, and YMCAs. We counted on Girls Inc., to serve all of our students, and these are all of our families. Not only did we believe in it, we funded it, and we lifted up examples where it worked best.
HPR: In addition to managing the pandemic and subsequent academic recovery, the Biden administration sought to deal with the student loan debt crisis. Tell us a little about your work on that issue.
MC: First, we had to acknowledge that the system was broken; higher education access was limited for many. I recall having a 12-year-old boy visit my office when I was assistant superintendent. He was in my office as a 12-year-old with his father, and he said that he’s not going to college because it’s too expensive. His father was standing next to him and nodding, almost like he already accepted the fact that college is not an option for his son because of the cost. After that conversation, I thought, imagine the potential in this country. Imagine what we could do if access to higher education were made possible for all students. When I got to D.C. and saw the president focused on this issue, we got to work.
A lot of headlines were written about student debt relief. It was unlike anything that had been done in the past. I understand that, but for me, there’s a whole menu of things we were doing to try to fix the broken system. Debt relief, accountability in higher education, making the return on investment in higher education more transparent, going after for-profit institutions that were preying on veterans and first-generation students by putting them in debt without offering them value. So while student debt relief got a lot of attention, it was one of many things we were trying to do to fix a broken system.
To me, it was never really an ideological argument. It was more of a partisan argument. The debt relief package that President Biden put forward would have helped constituents in red states more. There was a precedent set when the banking industry and the airline industry needed help, and when the auto industry was struggling, the government helped. Yet, when working-class Americans needed help, that’s when people started to outcry.
An area worth mentioning is what we did to implement the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLFP) effectively. The PSLFP was passed in 2007 in bipartisan fashion — there’s no political affiliation to this law. It says that if a public servant, educator, government official, someone working in nursing, healthcare industries, or certain 501(c)(3) public-serving institutions work for 10 years in public service and pay their loans for 10 years, their loans should be discharged. However, there were obstacles put in the way of what was promised; we set out to fix that. Within three years, we had a million public servants get debt relief. That’s something we did to help public servants and keep a promise made in 2007 in bipartisan fashion.
It’s important, when we talk about debt relief, to put people to policies and assign faces to it. I talked to a teacher in New York City who told me that because of the PSLFP, she was able to get her bathtub fixed so her disabled husband could get in the bathtub. It’s important to remind folks of the human stories that motivated these efforts. In over 30 states, educators could be eligible for state assistance because their salaries are so low.
For me, it was an honor to work on debt relief, targeted debt relief, to make sure we could continue to get students to go into public service and help them reach their potential by accessing higher education.
HPR: Do you think we are heading forward or backward towards fighting for equitable educational rights?
Miguel Cardona: We’re fighting forward, but I don’t believe the federal government is contributing to that fight forward. Much like the storm of the pandemic caused interdependence and innovative ways of locking arms and working together to get through that storm, we’re seeing that happening today. Alliances are forming with people who want the best for our schools, and we’re continuing to keep students at the center of the conversation and lean on each other to make sure that our students have access and opportunity.
I’ll never bet against our schools, against our educators, or against our families. I’ll never bet against our community’s ability to rise above that, come together, and serve our students. We’re in a period of pain right now in the public education sector, and my concern over that is only overshadowed by my optimism that a better day will come.
HPR: Reflecting on your educational career, what would you say has been your proudest achievement working as Secretary of Education or as Commissioner?
Miguel Cardona: Staying connected with students and never straying too far from my wife. I visited all 50 states over the years and multiple countries, but at the end of the day, I’m a fourth-grade teacher at heart. Whether I’m in the Oval Office having a conversation with the President about supporting 65 million students or visiting a kindergarten classroom in a state I travel to, I stay grounded in knowing what a tremendous honor and responsibility it is to lead on behalf of every student in every school across the country.
I had the benefit of my lived experience, of being one of those students that, 45 years ago, most people probably wouldn’t have bet on, because the data didn’t suggest I would one day serve as Secretary of Education. My desire has always been to help create a public education system where all students, regardless of race or place, have the same opportunities that I had.
