SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - Hundreds of educators packed a ballroom of a downtown San Diego hotel to listen to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.
"Educators, for the last two years we've battled COVID for the next two years let's work together to battle complacency,” he said.
Cardona is on a Southern California tour talking about education post-pandemic and changing education as a whole.
"Strategies such as increasing pay, scaling up paid residency programs,” he said.
Some of those topics that were discussed included using American Rescue Plan funds to improve schools and their districts as well teacher shortages.
"For far too long, this notion of student teaching without any salary has kept people out of the profession. It's time to reset on a lot of things that didn't work,” Cardona said.
Doctor Carlos Cortez of the San Diego Community College District was in attendance to listen to Cardona.
"And I was particularly keen on developing an alternative pathway to becoming a teacher,” Cortez said.
Cortez says he works with organizations to address the teacher shortage.
"How can we expedite the process? How can we take into consideration prior work experience? Possibly exploring the possibility of undergraduate teacher credentialing," Cortez said. “There’s a couple of pilots happening here in the state of California. But this is a critical need that we need to tackle head-on."
There was similar support for these ideas and plans are being had by others involved in San Diego’s education system
"To hear the Ed. Secretary being here at the Carnegie Summit, talk about teacher pipelines, talking about using all of these funds that have come to just create stronger outcomes for kids is inspiring. It's uplifting after such a hard couple in education,” Dr. Nicole Assisi, Former Charter School Superintendent, said.
Cardona is also visiting other colleges and high schools in the Los Angeles County area on Tuesday and Wednesday.
