Miguel Cardona Is America’s Worst Education Secretary
Frederick M. Hess
October 24, 2024
Miguel Cardona is the worst secretary in the 45-year history of the U.S. Department of Education, and it’s not particularly close.
Reporting this brings me no glee. When Cardona took office in January 2021, after the media’s vicious, irresponsible treatment of his predecessor, Betsy DeVos, I argued against reflexive payback. Noting that Cardona seemed “a likable figure,” I called for judging him by “a more measured and fair-minded standard.”
Well, Cardona has had four years to show his mettle, and the results aren’t pretty. Perhaps it’s no great surprise that Cardona has been overmatched, given that his prior experience came mainly as a mid-level bureaucrat in Connecticut’s 13th-largest school district (plus a brief stint atop the state’s education agency). Harder to see coming was the degree to which this anodyne administrator would exhibit relentless partisanship, troubling disregard for student learning, and disdain for democratic accountability.
