In 2022, Cardona’s team broke with more than two decades of careful efforts to keep the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) at arm’s length from politics, using the NAEP release as a chance to let political appointees tout Biden’s spending proposals and distribute administration talking points. He has pushed to cut funding for charter schools while denouncing Republican efforts to expand school choice as an effort to “attack our schools” and “privatize education.”
You might think that Cardona, responsible for the disastrous failure to execute the Congressionally-mandated revamp of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), would focus on quietly cleaning up that mess. At a minimum, you might think that a man who oversaw the biggest debacle in his Department’s history would be leery of impugning those who argue his Department should do only what Congress has actually empowered it to do. You’d be wrong.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, put it well, telling us: