Are we already . I am with the Christian Science monitor. A principal and then a superintendent of schools. In 2019, governor lamont appointed mr. Cardoza mr. Cardona education secretary. How old are your children . Thank you for doing this. Before i deliver the ground rules, i must note todays breakfast will last 45 minutes and we will have a hard stop at 945 when the secretary 9 45 a when the secretary has to leave. Once the session ends at no at 9 45, we will email a transcript of this breakfast to all reporters shortly after we conclude. If you would like to ask questions, send me a signal and i will call on you as time permits. Secretary cardona, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. I want to say to all of you, you have a very important job, especially as our nation recovers from a onceinalifetime pandemic. The title i love more is the title i love most is that, the father of two teenagers. My wife is also an educator. She works in college career. Education is something that is near and dear to me and my family. And i recognize the importance of education, good education. I wouldnt be sitting here at secretary if it wouldnt if it wasnt for people who believed in me. Feeling excited this time of year. I always look at the beginning of a new school year as an opportunity for students to think big and think about what they can do, the possibilities and schools provide that. Going through a hallway on the first day of school is like my super bowl. So much excitement. So much good feeling, so much hope. To be the secretary of education, i make sure schools have the resources and tools they need. I have always said our country has normalized discrepancies or differences in achievement based on race and place. My whole career i have been focused on trying to address that. That will continue to be the passion of mine as long as i am secretary of education. The American Rescue plan provided funding, but it is also intended to address what the nations report card data share last week. This purities in achievement have increased due to the pandemic. Mass achievement has math achievement has gone down seven points, reading achievement has gone down. I look at that through raise the bar on support. I am just as proud of the work we are doing in Higher Education to fix a broken system. A system that prevented access to so many students and families. We are fixing public loan forgiveness, income driven repayment. We are trying to make Higher Education accessible to more people. The president has been very bold in education. It gives our country time to match the level of urgency that our president has demonstrated in the first year. I am eager to and honored and humbled to serve in that task to work with our colleges across the country to raise the bar on education. I will ask a question or two and then we will go around the room. I want to ask you about the plan for debt forgiveness. You mentioned social problems in the Education System. If this plan goes into effect, is there question around given the legal questions that are expected. If it goes through, does it address the structural problem . What are the underlying structural problems . Edu. Sec. Cardona that is great, but that will not fix the longterm issues. What we were proposing with the income driven repayment. It will cut loan payments, student loan payments in half for borrowers. We went from 10 of someones income to 5 . I remember having a conversation with a gentleman whose son was in my school when i was a principal in marital. He said, he is not going to college, i just cannot afford it. The boy was in sixth grade in the parent made the decision based on the fact that he knew six years later his son wasnt going to college. We are proud of the debt relief, we are just as proud of the work we are doing to fix a broken system. Income driven repayment, public loan forgiveness, if you choose a profession where you are serving the public, in many cases you dont do that because it pays like a private sector. Youre doing it to make the community better. We are making sure the Public Service loan forgiveness is implemented correctly. When i became secretary of education, there was a 99 percent denial rate for Public Servants who paid their loan for 10 years, serve the public for 10 years and 98 were denied. Within a year of our fixing the broken system, we provided over 175 people have benefited from it. We are fighting to double pell grant so that more students who have less resources growing up still have College Accessible for them. Higher education accountability, we are going to be working very closely with our education institutions to ensure a good return. We have to give parents more information, transparency so they know which institutions they should consider for their children. I am not an education reporter per se, but for but as far as i know, there havent been any losses. People are talking about lawsuits to challenge the proposal. President biden and Speaker Pelosi have said early on that they couldnt just do this by eo , the money would have to come from congress to do this. Now we are doing that to the heroes act. How is that legal . Edu. Sec. Cardona because it is an issue that affects all americans. The potential in this country is limitless. However, because of the difficulty to access Higher Education, we are limiting our countries potential. To ensure that students are not worse off after the pandemic than they were before, we are using that authority. We have looked at that very carefully and we think it is the time to make sure coming out of the pandemic, we provide support to students just like we did for businesses when businesses were struggling. We are getting regular Everyday Americans back on their feet so they can buy homes, get married, go on with life. Youre confident this is not going to get dragged out in court for years . Edu. Sec. Cardona we are acting on our authority. We believe we have not only the right the possibility. One more. We are dealing with a Teacher Shortage at the moment. There has been a lot of talk about respect and how teachers are under attack from many directions whether it is the content of what they are teaching, the debate around trt, the debate around lgbt you lgbtq, how do you address how teachers feel about the lack of respect . Edu. Sec. Cardona i remember i was a 21yearold student teacher in Hartford Connecticut and i wore a tie everyday. Walking around, i had a veteran teacher pulled me aside and say i appreciate you wear a tie, we have to make sure we look professional. That was a long time ago. Back then and today we are still fighting for the teacher profession to be looked at as a profession. We are still addressing the Teacher Shortage profession, and we have to be bold and serious about the teacher profession. Teachers on average make about 30 less then College Graduates with similar degrees. We adjusted for inflation. Teachers in montana come in at 32,000. What can you do with 32,000 . And we know teachers who are paying out of their pocket for material for students. We have to address and we have to be bold about it. Serious about investing in our schools and Education System, we must make sure we are treating educators with respect. How do you encourage respect and create that environment . Edu. Sec. Cardona as an education guy, everything has an acronym to it. Abcs. A stance for agency. Make sure stage as stands for agency. Some autonomy of how they meet the students needs. B, better working conditions. There are schools in this country today that have a ratio of over 700 to one school counselors. What does that mean for a First Generation College student that wants to go to college and their parents may not be able to help them. If we are not providing better working conditions by ensuring there is adequate support for the students, then we are kidding ourselves. Better working conditions also means we revisit normalizing that teachers can work in classrooms that are 95 degrees all day with 27 students. Working conditions means when we receive our students back after a pandemic, many of them, have lost a caregiver due to the pandemic. Professional learning opportunities on how to deal with trauma. Better career pathways. A, is agency; b, is better working conditions, c is. If we are serious about lifting the profession, lifting education, we must invest in our educators. Investing in our educators is an invested is an investment in our students. You grew up a halfhour for me. Edu. Sec. Cardona really . I have a twoparter. The committee responsible for federal budget for federal budget, and nonbipartisan federal group. Essentially it will be back where it was. Adjusting for inflation, it will be even more by 2031. Definitely higher than where it is. I am sure you heard this commentary before, what do you think of that . Edu. Sec. Cardona thank you, john. This decision to provide debt relief is one strategy out of many i highlighted earlier. The worst thing that could happen is for us to provide debt relief and be in the same position five years from now. If we dont stop the bleeding, we are going to be in the same position we are in. We are eager to fix the broken system. Ensuring a better return on investment policies. College costs have bloomed. We have to make sure we are working with Higher Education institutions to hold them accountable for better return investments. Cancel employment rates of students who go to those schools. You are absolutely right. If we think a loan forgiveness alone will help fix the root cause of the issue, that is onesided. We are working really hard on those policies, fixing the broken system. The recent announcement from the president , the president and the Inflation Reduction Act has reduced by. It is projected 1. 7 trillion will be reduced by this year alone. There are efforts to reduce the deficit by the president. We believe federal relief, what americans need right now, i talked to a teacher recently who said this is going to allow me to use the funds i use to pay my loans to help my daughter go to college. It is helping Everyday Americans. The focus is not only on the debt relief, but it is not as flashy. It is fixing a broken system through policy like the repayment system. Polls showed about the time the president made his decision, his numbers were dropping among young people. Was that a factor in him at all forgiving debt relief. . Edu. Sec. Cardona absolutely not. We have been discussing this. I sound like a broken record. I dont have any breaking news on this. We have been discussing this for many months. The president hasnt been sitting idle. I was having a conversation with someone yesterday, within a couple of months of him taking off the American Rescue plan. We have a bipartisan infrastructure bill that was passed. We have a path now. The Inflation Reduction Act. There is not like there was nothing else going on. This president has been very busy. Not sensationalism. We are getting things done. The debt relief package, im going conversation with the white house. We are really proud of where we came out. We ended up with 20 for those who are eligible with pale to address disparities. We are also proud of the repayment process. It is not as flashy but had interracial impact. The timing had to do more with the negotiations we had helping the american people. I have a question about the one time debt cancellation. We know the borrowers who made payments during the payment paused can request refunds from their services. My question is whether those refunds are eligible for the one time debt relief . Edu. Sec. Cardona let me just put it out there early, we are planning to share information. How we provide longterm debt relief. That is something we are seeking to do. Where we go with that will be found. Go to student aid. Gov debt relief. Go in, sign up. As soon as we put something out, you will automatically get it. We are trying to make it easy. Part of fixing a broken system is making sure when you go onto our website, you are getting answers right away. There is not a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of red tape. We felt a lot of people going for the Loan Forgiveness Program gave up. We tried to simplify the process so folks are not stressed out with the process of getting debt relief. Student aid debt relief. They can sign up there. Nick anderson from the washington post. Last month you made a speech talking about College Rankings and a chase for prestige in the ranking system. You said that system of ranking is a joke. What drove you to laser in on prestige based rankings . Edu. Sec. Cardona thanks for the question. There are millions of students out there with tremendous potential. Many of home are the first in their family to go to college who wont even be looked at by some of these universities. I believe we have a system that rewards exclusionary practice. I am interested in developing our systems of Higher Education to promote and reward inclusionarys. I dont have to tell you that when students graduate, we still have disparities in achievement. The nations data that i referred to earlier, the nations report card is a symptom of the system in place that serves as a determinants of success. You add the pandemic that exacerbated the disparities. Unfortunately for many of these students, they dont have access to some of our higher institutions. I want to provide a spotlight on those universities that go the extra mile to meet those students where they are, providing the support they need and give them opportunities to meet their american dreams. Something that hasnt been done before, we brought those students we brought those in and how they are using American Rescue dollars and how their division of how Higher Education can be is more inclusive. Your attack on prestige based rankings did not really mention proceeds based rankings. Did you have it in your point . Edu. Sec. Cardona that and others, in my opinion, prioritized prestige exclusivity. We are very serious about bringing attention to and providing support to those universities that take students that are struggling right now and give them an opportunity. I went to a university, i think it was las vegas where it was a Community College that had a student sitting right next to me talking about the program they are in. It came out later in the conversation just naturally that this person was homeless and this person was close to getting a degree. The university provided some support for housing. This person is going to be very successful because the university provided this support. I want to acknowledge that, lift that, i want to make sure more americans have access to Higher Education and a career path for success. Sally from fox. You talked a little in your remarks about conditionbased schools. We have seen early that the schools closed are you concerned that money is not being well spent . House republicans wrote your agency a letter for a breakdown of how money is being spent in the districts. Edu. Sec. Cardona thank you for your question. Was not when i was in connecticut, i was a commissioner. Schools shut down right away. The day after, our goal was to reopen. I saw the disparities between some districts and others. When i became secretary of education, it was really i visited philadelphia and i remember talking to the superintendent of philadelphia and they were not opening when neighboring communities that had other resources were. This is a topic you may hear a lot about now, but for decades, School Systems deferred maintenance on their air circulation so the air quality was poor. And when you add a pandemic that was airborne, there was a lot of fear from parents, they are not sending their kids back. Urban settings or settings where the buildings were old, and those buildings were old, they were not opening up. Absolutely i believe air quality, airflow, the working conditions of classes that are not 90 degrees to learn, it is a prerequisite to learning and teaching. In terms of the backup, we know supply chain issues have impacted the ability for schools. They are on back order. They want to get it, but i am waiting on supplies and this is a priority for me. The breakdown is almost 30 is going to go towards every structure of schools to make sure that the School Environments are safe for schools. I believe the money is being spent. I know the money is being spent appropriately. I have seen examples when i visited. There are more schools open this summer than any other schools because of the american afterschool program. In georgia, one hundred communitybased organizations were brought in to the fold with the School Systems effort to provide summer and afterschool programming. That would never happen if it werent for the American Rescue plan. Now talking about which colleges are closing in which schools do not have funding. The American Rescue plan is why we are talking about kids going to school and smiling and having the ability to go in full in person. I believe the money is being used adequately. I will welcome questions from my colleagues on the hill to show them in their districts, how the money is being used. I want to shift to a topic that hasnt been touched on yet, title ix. Are there any thoughts of expending the common. . I wanted to know it may be you would able to talk a little bit more about why you separate the sports issue from the title ix rule and if there is a timeline for when we should expect a proposal . Edu. Sec. Cardona over 200, 300,000 comments which shows this is important for us to have Public Comment and listen to what folks are saying. Every childs education matters. I was mentioning to him around Higher Education, inclusivity is something we should not even question. All students belong, all students should be seen. In terms of the commentary, extending it, at this point, it is important we communicate what we believe the role should be based on the comments and based on our thoughts at the department. In terms of separation, this topic of athletics is one that does require another round of specific athletics. We hear daily the issues we have. We want to move quickly on that. We recognize it is an important issue. But we also recognize rushing into something so important could create a situation where people are not feeling heard or given the opportunity to speak. I want to go back to structural issues with student loans. What are some tools that the department of education can use to address theofuition for these universities. Them are taxexempt because of their education stat. What can the department do . Edu. Sec. Cardona one thing i learned when we were reopening schools in the height of the pandemic in the state where we had 172 districts that had a level of autonomy that i couldnt as commissioners say this is what youre going to do, and the pandemic hit places differently. Some places were hit harder. We have to bring to the table those who are bringing incisions at the local value. It is my intention to Bring College president s to the table. Associations that govern them or represent them to the table. I am not foolish to think the best ideas come from washington dc. We want all of our students to succeed. It is our responsibility to bring folks together to have a conversation. The department of educations role is to make sure we are lifting up those institutions that are doing it and calling out those that are not, do not provide good value for students and family. We plan on working with them but we also plan on using the leverage we have like the funding opportunities to provide support for what we believe are providing inclusive support and providing a return on investments. It may be that we work with our partners on the hill to ensure our universities are accessible to all students. You mentioned Party Stakeholders involved in the system. Earlier you talked about public loans and red tape. What else needs to be done to fix the system. And what is the likelihood of that actually happening . Edu. Sec. Cardona we got into education to provide opportunities for students. Hbcu, traditional college, Community College, tribal college, where the union where the leadership doesnt believe that. We need to reexamine all we need to reexamine where we are and how we got to this broken system where it further exacerbates the haves and havenots. We have to identify which practices are leading to our Forward Return investment, leading to high debt, low income. And we have to cut that out. I am meeting later this week with some of the folks at the department to partners in highen to look at these factors differently. I dont come to the table with a plan and asked people to sign the plan. I want different stakeholders fingerprints on the plan so it is our plan. We are willing to address it, call it what it is. There has been more money in education in the last year and a half than the last over two decades that i have been in education. The support is there, the belief is there that the best strategy to lift this country, and now we have to ensure that would support comes accountability. How are we using the money and how we make sure we are not in the same mess that we are in now to fix the issues so we are not there again. We have five minutes until 9 45 and i know you want to make closing remarks. Edu. Sec. Cardona like rapid fire question mark like rapid fire . A lightning round. David, why dont i know there has been pushed back on this loan forgiveness idea. Can you address the fairness aspect of this . Some students have paid off student loans. What you say to those who say, i have paid mind, why do these people now get the slate wiped clean . The sec. Cardona the pandemic infected all of us. This is to make sure the borrowers are not worse off after the pandemic and they were before. For those that have paid off their loan, having their neighbor not go into default helps the local economy. We know default is skyrocketing and we are expecting it to skyrocket even more. It helped the local economy. In my opinion, it is unamerican to see your neighbor do well. We are not complaining that businesses were not forced to shut their doors and provided support for businesses through ppp. A lot of those businesses that are still open now would not have been open if not for that. We invested in businesses, now we are investing in americans to make sure they get back on their feet and move on with their lives. Chris. Thank you for doing this i just had a question about the pslf waiver. Extension on the payment is supposed to go through the end of the air. A group of lawmakers recently wrote to the department to aspirate for an extension on the waiver. I just want to know if that is in play. Is that part of the announcements regarding the suspension about a month or so in advance, so i was wondering when we might see any interest about that. Sec. Cardona as i said before, this was broken pretty badly. 98 of people were denied. 175,000 people are getting benefits. Based on what congress acted on in 2007, the waiver is a limited waiver. Even if they are not sure if they qualify for it, we are really pushing that. In terms of an extension, we are not announcing an extension. We are right now focused on trying to get as many people on. We obviously are working really hard to provide as much benefits to the popes to the folks that qualify for. Take every opportunity to promote that october 31 deadline. Anything you can do would be great. Thank you. This is a question that hasnt been raised yet. School segregation. This is something we know is increasing across the country, something you dont within in your prior role. There is something a new jersey related to school integration. I am wondering what, if anything, the administration might be doing to support schools or districts that might be wanting to start Integration Policies in their schools. Sec. Cardona i do have a lot of expense with that in connecticut. We in connecticut really used a Magnet School model to attract students from different communities. I know the president s budget also included funding to help support efforts to integrate schools. It is sad that we are discussing this, this far out after legislation on desegregation. The reality is, it requires not just strategies from the department of education, but the willingness of communities to see the benefit of diversity, to make sure that, like for me, my child experience in school was better because they were able to experience learning with people that were totally different from them. That is a skill. It is a skill that we want all of our children to have, how to learn with people that are totally different than them, so when they graduate and move on, we are looking at a global economy. We do support efforts, we will continue to highlight efforts of successful desegregation and integration. We see models across the country. States control the education, so we see models that work and lift those up. At the federal level, we support through grants and Technical Assistance where we can. I think the more important thing is that we share the value that diversity is what makes our country unique and better. We have to continue to push that throughout the country. We are just about at time. Sec. Cardona did everyone get a chance . We had a couple more, but i dont know do you want to keep going . Sec. Cardona a couple more. One to your right and one across the table. K12, talking about that, in terms of the money that is being used to help for teacher preparation, you know the headlines. That is the money the schools have now from these initiatives, but how is it going to be sustainable when that money is no longer there . Sec. Cardona i appreciate that question. My response to this is going to be similar to, how do we address the issue in Higher Education of ballooning costs . Look, federal spending on education makes up about 10 of Education Funding total. There is 90 . My challenge is to the other 90 , to match the president s earnings urgency. Matches urgency. If we go back to the funding that was there in march 2020, we should not expect permanent results. Specifically to the teacher pipeline programs, for example, i was looking i will be in tennessee next week at a backtoschool forum. Tennessee has an a tremendous Apprenticeship Program throughout the state. It is much like an apprenticeship for a trade. They are looking at bible solutions that are longterm. There has to be an investment in those programs by states. There has to be an investment. Lets not forget what happened with omicron. It was not because of koba, but because people were quarantining because of close contact. We cannot forget the impact that had on communities because we dont have enough teachers and schools had to close. My push is not only to make sure we are using the federal funds to create programs, but also to elevate the urgency of state and local governments on ongoing funding on issues that are so important. Same thing with Higher Education. We are creating a department in the department of Higher Education to assess spending rates and Higher Education in the states over the years. There is something to help increase funding to help keep costs lowers lower. There have been drops in other states, which results in higher tuitions. We are looking at our colleagues, governors, and Company Leaders talking mother urgency in education. Match the president s urgency. That is how we are going to get ahead. I want to shift very quickly. Do we have time . I want mariah to get one in, too. Ok, mariah from the washington post. Thank you for doing this again. I want to know what your thoughts are on some states trying to fill these teacher vacancies, like lowering standards in some cases or creating alternative pathways. In florida, for example, they did sort of what you are talking about, which is raise compensation, but they have also created a new pathway where veterans with some College Education can now become teachers, once they get provisional licenses after two years underneath an actual certified teacher, but they are not requiring college degrees. In oklahoma, you dont need any kind of teacher preparation in order to become an emergency certified teacher. They are relying increasingly on that. Im here to know what your thoughts are on those kinds of alternative pathways. Sec. Cardona thanks, mariah. I started earlier saying that i was fighting to make sure teaching is looked at as a profession. The moment we start lowering standards to get in, we are again doubling down on the disrespect to the profession. Look, i am all for veterans becoming teachers. In connecticut, we have a program called troops to teachers. They bring such a skill set. But lets remember, when the natures when the nations report card issuing students have dropped drastically, to provide educators who are not qualified or trained in the pedagogy is a slap in the face to the profession. When we have instead of being 45th out of 50 for livable wages, we need to address that people are leaving the profession, that people are not selecting education. Lets make sure we have agency, better working conditions, competitive salary, and you will see that issue go away. We will raise the bar. Kids need more, not less. I was a district leader, i know we have shortage areas. We have pathway programs. We had to look at current students and future teachers and give them a pathway in high school. We need to look at educators who work extremely hard meeting the need of our students, making 12 per hour, and say that im going to use this funding free to go on and get your degree, then you are going to go you are going to come back and get a job here. We need to look at American Rescue dollars to bring in retired teachers without any risk to their retirement benefits. We need to make these things possible. There are solutions out there. Lowering standards is not one of them. We need to raise the bar. Enke. Did you want to make closing statements . Sec. Cardona i will end with what i started with. Your role is critically important. I appreciate you taking the time to be here. I feel very optimistic about education moving forward. The pandemic sharpened our swords for the real fight ahead, which is addressing inequities, raising the bar in education. If we can reopen the schools and the height of a pandemic, ensuring safety, we can address Teacher Shortage issues. We can address lagging achievement, we can address disparities that have increased, we can address this broken Higher Education system. I am confident that if we put the urgency over the last few years of getting schools open onto the issues of today and work with the american people, focusing on all kinds of issues, we can provide a better Education System then we have ever had. Im confident in that. The president came in. He does not call himself in education president , but look at the policy and movements for funding in education. It has never happened before. I am telling states and districts, to match the level of urgency, lets be innovative, and lets make it better than it was in march 2020. That should not be our goal, to go back to what it was then. We will be failing our kids if we do that. This is an opportunity for us to relate reimagined education. We have the resources, we should have the urgency. We are working together to get it done. Thank you, everyone. Thank you so much and i hope you will come back. Sec. Cardona i definitely will. If you could just take off your microphone. Sec. Cardona cant leave with that, right . Good to meet you all. Thank you. Take care