Education Secretary Cardona Has Big Plans for Equity. Are States and Districts Listening?
Education Secretary Cardona Has Big Plans for Equity. Are States and Districts Listening?
When Education Secretary Miguel Cardona outlined the Biden administration’s education priorities in a major speech last month, he didn’t mince words when he told state and district leaders that they needed to do more to put equity front and center.
“We need our states and districts to take a hard look at their own ways of funding schools, and for those leaders to make the difficult decisions to fix broken systems that perpetuate inequities in our schools across the country,” he said.
“It is our moment to finally make education the great equalizer,” he continued, “the force that can help every student thrive, no matter their background, ZIP code, circumstance or language they speak at home.”
Addressing inequity in the K-12 system, Cardona added, will be the education community’s “hardest and most important work” – work that they will be judged against.
Of course, all administrations talk a big game when it comes to education equity. But for President Joe Biden, who assumed the White House amid a pandemic that exacerbated long-standing achievement gaps and locked low-income students, students of color and those with disabilities out of classrooms longer than their wealthier, whiter peers – and for Cardona in particular, who ascended to the country’s top education post after growing up in public housing and navigating public school as an English language learner – the focus is rooted in urgency and intimate understanding of the implications.
That’s why it looked so bad when mere days after the secretary’s speech asking state and district leaders to “level up,” the school board members of Darien, Connecticut – Cardona’s home state – voted down a program designed to address racial and economic disparities that exist between cities and neighboring suburbs by allowing kindergarteners from neighboring Norwalk to attend their schools.
Under the plan, 16 children from Norwalk would have the opportunity to enroll in schools in Darien, where the median family income is $230,000 – roughly three times that of Norwalk, where 30% of students are Hispanic and half of students are still learning English.
The program was backed by the superintendent and head of the school board, but opponents voiced concerns about class sizes and challenges related to the ongoing pandemic.
