Biden Picks San Diego Superintendent for Deputy Education Secretary Subscribe Politics K-12®
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President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Cindy Marten, the superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District, to serve as deputy secretary of education, his transition team announced Monday.
Marten was a classroom teacher for 17 years before she took roles as a vice principal, principal, and literacy specialist. The San Diego school board appointed her to lead the district in 2013. In the time since, the school system has been recognized for improving students’ reading achievement
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Miguel Cardona remembers how overwhelmed he felt when he walked into school for the first time as a student.
The son of parents who moved to Meriden, Conn., from Puerto Rico as children, he lived in public housing and didn’t speak English as a young child.
“I remember my first day of kindergarten at John Barry School,” the nominee for U.S. secretary of education said at a virtual farewell celebration with Meriden leaders earlier this month, referring to an elementary school in his home city.
“That day, I ended up in the nurse’s office crying, and I had to go home early. I never wanted to go back. Here I am, 40 years later, and I’m having mixed emotions about leaving the place I love.”
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned last week in the wake of the rampage on the Capitol, becoming one of the highest profile Cabinet members to do so. Her departure on Friday, after criticizing President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, was a dramatic finale for one of the longest-serving, and most controversial, members of the president’s senior administrative team. It closes out one of the most highly charged tenures in the history of the Education Department.
This notoriety could now have implications for the American school system – and for the person who soon steps into the role she has vacated. Pundits were already comparing President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for the role, Connecticut Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona, to Ms. DeVos, whose central message during her time in office was that “public education” did not need to mean “public schools.” She championed educational innovation and giving families the ability to decide where and how to educate thei
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned last week in the wake of the rampage on the Capitol, becoming one of the highest profile Cabinet members to do so. Her departure on Friday, after criticizing President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, was a dramatic finale for one of the longest-serving, and most controversial, members of the president’s senior administrative team. It closes out one of the most highly charged tenures in the history of the Education Department.
This notoriety could now have implications for the American school system – and for the person who soon steps into the role she has vacated. Pundits were already comparing President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for the role, Connecticut Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona, to Ms. DeVos, whose central message during her time in office was that “public education” did not need to mean “public schools.” She championed educational innovation and giving families the ability to decide where and how to educate thei