Miguel Cardona is sick of the political strife that\u2019s consuming classrooms, and he\u2019s ready to say so out loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Joe Biden\u2019s education secretary \u2014 a former elementary school principal from Connecticut \u2014 has sought to avoid conflict since arriving in Washington. But Cardona has been shaken by the country\u2019s fractured education politics over curriculum, parents\u2019 rights, LGBTQ students and race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was hired to improve education in the country. I\u2019m not a politician. I\u2019m an educator. I\u2019m a dad, and I want to talk about raising the bar in education,\u201d Cardona said in an interview with POLITICO last week. \u201cBut I won\u2019t sit idly when some try to attack our schools or privatize education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cardona advocated for tighter gun laws after last year\u2019s killings at Robb Elementary and has warned that the country risks failing students in Covid-19\u2019s wake. Yet his newly public exasperation with school-centered partisanship comes as the Republican-controlled House approved sweeping \u201cParents Bill of Rights\u201d legislation that captures broad strokes of pandemic-era conservative education wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen we talk about politicization, when we talk about book banning, when we talk about Black history curriculum being picked apart \u2014 I think there are deliberate attempts to make sure that our public schools are not functional so that the private option sounds better,\u201d the education secretary said. \u201cI don\u2019t doubt that\u2019s intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elections are also at play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly 30,000 school board seats are on the ballot this year across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis \u2014 a likely 2024 Republican presidential candidate who weighed in on school board races last year \u2014 has tapped conservative energy with a range of education issues. He signed one measure restricting how gender identities are discussed with schoolchildren, launched a feud over an Advanced Placement African American history course, and is primed to sign major private school voucher legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden\u2019s other potential challengers also frame their education concerns with a distinct culture war bent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conservatives say they\u2019re the ones on the defensive. Many Republican governors and lawmakers argue their restrictions on classroom lessons, curriculum, and LGBTQ students are meant to blunt diversity initiatives run amok or what they see as the misapplication of legal protections to include transgender people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some Republican groups are also looking to combine a longstanding push for expansive school choice programs with renewed efforts to harness more power on local school boards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMany school board members are intertwined with biased political ideologies and are controlled by special interests groups like the teachers unions,\u201d said Laura Zorc, the education reform director at the conservative FreedomWorks organization, after Florida lawmakers sent their school choice bill to DeSantis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe only way parents can ensure that their children receive a high quality education is if state educational dollars, traditionally earmarked for local school districts, are directed to parents who want the very best for their children,\u201d Zorc said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cardona\u2019s public frustration dovetails with a growing political counteroffensive from White House allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
National Education Association President Becky Pringle and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten recently denounced DeSantis during an Orlando rally, and Weingarten is scheduled to deliver an address \u201cin defense of public education\u201d in Washington this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Democratic Party of Illinois last week unveiled what it called an unprecedented effort to endorse dozens of candidates in nonpartisan local school and library board races. It also plans to funnel nearly $300,000 into an advertising and organizing campaign surrounding those elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amid all this tension, Cardona has wielded recent op-eds in Newsweek and the Tampa Bay Times to accuse Republicans of \u201chiding behind the guise of \u2018parents\u2019 rights\u2019\u201d to defund public schools and trying to \u201chijack\u201d classroom discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the secretary met last week with school superintendent and teacher representatives, who, he said, \u201cfeel the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt just seems like it\u2019s a constant attack on what I know as a dad, and what I know as an educator, is happening in our schools,\u201d Cardona said in the interview. \u201cEducation being used to divide communities is the challenge that we face now as leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That challenge, he told state superintendents assembled in Washington last week, \u201cis even harder than what we had in 2020\u201d when Covid-19 first shuttered schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur students are as [emotionally] dysregulated as they ever have been in the last twenty years. The surgeon general reminded us that we\u2019re in a youth mental health crisis, where one in three high school girls has considered suicide in the last three years,\u201d Cardona told POLITICO. \u201cI\u2019m tired of folks looking to get political points by attacking vulnerable students, vulnerable communities and attacking our schools.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n