What Happens if Trump Shuts Down the Department of Education?

Miguel Cardona: We're going to have shiny football fields and districts where kids can't read. It sounds funny until it's not funny until one of those kids that can't read is your kid. And you know that there's no federal oversight now saying, hey, wait a minute, you can't use the money for that. 

Sheila Nix: If some of this stuff, you know, it feels so chaotic, but it is part of the implementation of Project 2025. All these things were discussed by the people who are in power now. 

Miguel Cardona: We were dealing with a million defaults a year. That's not good for anyone. When you think about the Department of Education, think about the people you love. If you know someone with a disability in our schools, if you know someone that is suffering from mental health needs, if you know someone that could use an alternative track, when you think of the Department of Education, think of that.

Dan Koh: So why should we care if Trump eliminates the Department of Education? There's been a lot of talk about the agency lately, but few actually know how it will affect them or their neighbors at home. Miguel Cardona was Secretary of Education under President Biden, and Sheila Nix was his Chief of Staff, as well as Chief of Staff to Vice President Kamala Harris during her presidential campaign. They join us to explain what would fundamentally change, how it might result in more football fields, and what things would have looked like had Kamala Harris been elected president of the United States. Let's swear in to the People's Cabinet, Secretary Miguel Cardona and Sheila Nix. Mr. Secretary, Sheila Nix, welcome to the People's Cabinet. 

Sheila Nix: Thank you. 

Miguel Cardona: Good to be with you, Dan.

Dan Koh: I appreciate you being here. So there's been a lot of conversation about the Department of Education, as you both well know, about whether it should even exist. What President Trump is doing is Department of Education. And so I think it's really important for listeners to understand how the Department of Education affects people locally in their communities and what people should be tracking as the main concerns with the Department of Education in this state that it is now, which is essentially Trump trying to close it. So my first question is to you, Mr. Secretary. Can you give us examples of the kinds of things that you would be most concerned about in this scenario that Trump is proposing?

Miguel Cardona: Sure. First of all, thank you for having me. And it's always good to see you again, Dan, and Sheila, always great to see you. You know, I appreciate the format of this because we need to really talk in common sense here. What's going to happen? I just got off the phone with someone before this podcast who told me that a superintendent in Connecticut received notice that $9 million in federal grant, a federal grant that they won, $9 million to support mental health needs of students, was canceled. So this district now has to think about how they're going to meet the needs of these students with the grant being pulled. What we're going to see across the country is a reduction in resources available to support students in need. And the reality is the students that are going to feel it first and most acutely are the students furthest from opportunity. You know, the 26 million students that qualify for Title I funding, which includes rural communities, you know, significantly, there are 9 million students in rural communities that are going to feel the impact first and deeper. Students with IEPs, you know, students with disabilities, the students furthest from opportunity, students that need the most support will feel it the most, but everyone's going to feel it. You know, so I hope we get into the conversation and talk about what that means for communities and what they should be doing. That's what's happening. Based on what took place over the last three months from the federal government into slashing the disrespect, not to mention the disrespect to the employees that worked there for 30 years, that were given 30 minutes to clean out their desks. So we're going to see the impacts for many years to come.

Daniel Koh: And Sheila, as chief of staff, you obviously oversaw a significant amount of the activity within the Department of Education. You were tasked with executing the secretary's vision. Could you just very briefly go over the areas of the Department of Education that you think are most affected by this and how people should think about it when they're talking to neighbors about the threats to Department of Education? What I'm getting at is that I want people to be able to say, not just it's bad that Department of Education is closing, but say here are the three or four areas that are really concerning because they touch everybody no matter what community you're in, whether it's red or blue.

Sheila Nix: Yeah, I would say that the top things would be, and I think Secretary touched on this, 7.4 million students with disabilities, 26 million students from low-income backgrounds, six states where more than 20% of their education budget comes from the federal government, 9.8 million students in rural schools, and 6.6 million Pell Grant recipients. I think, as you know, and I think as we saw when Secretary Cardona and I were at the Department of Education, the higher ed piece of the Department of Education, where students can do FAFSA applications, get Pell Grants, make it affordable for them to go to college. All of the people who run those programs are gone. And there's already discussion of eliminating Pell Grants. So I think for all the families right now that are getting ready for their students to go to college or start to think about college, I think that's a serious and immediate impact that people should be aware of.

Daniel Koh: And I think most people understand financial aid in the system there. But for those who don't, can you explain what FAFSA stands for, what that is, and what a Pell Grant is?

Sheila Nix: Give me a couple of these gray hairs here. To be honest, I'm sure. So look, it's financial aid, Federal Student Aid, right. And I want to go a little bit, I'm going to go into this a little bit because it was intended to give students an opportunity to go to college and open up the aperture of talent in this country. We know college graduates on average make $1,000,000 more than high school graduates over the course of their career. So it's really about good economic stability for our country and an opportunity for students. The students are eligible up to $7,400 a year, depending on their financial need. President Biden brought it up $900 during his time as president. He was really aggressive, ensuring that there were more dollars for students in great need to level the playing field. So, as Sheila mentioned, over 6 million students benefit from that. Over 17 million students apply for FAFSA. And for the students that are not eligible for Pell Grants, they're eligible for loans. And without those loans, they can't go to school, many of them, or they have to rely on private loans, which interest rates are ridiculous. This is why we had a debt crisis that we had in this country. That system needs to function better.

Miguel Cardona: So 2019, the FAFSA Simplification Act was passed. 2019, remember? We'll explain what FAFSA stands for. It's a free application for Federal Student Aid, so it's basically a bridge for students to have financial aid to go to college. And in many cases, the FAFSA allotment and state matching or whatever could pay for a two-year school. So you can get a student, you know, could get a credential or could get an associate's degree without having to pay a dollar. So the intent there is to really help students accelerate their path to higher education. So make a quick timeline here. 2018, the FAFSA Simplification Act was passed. That was in 2019. President Biden took office 2021. Nothing was done. There was time in the previous administration to do something. Nothing was done. 2021 we come in. I was sworn in March 2nd, 2021. It took some time to get people approved through the Senate to join our team. It's not like you started working on January 20. Though, some of my colleagues, both sides of the aisle, were holding off some of the approvals to start to swear in the key leaders that I needed to get this off the ground. So mid to late 2021, we're looking at what they passed in 2019. I think it was, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think it had to be done like a '22. So we said, well, wait a minute, we just got our undersecretary. That took too long. We just got our FAFSA lead. That took too long. And now we had, what, seven months to do this? So we said we're going to seek them to push it back another year so we can really examine the depth and really make sure we're making transformation. We did that and what we realized is when we came in, the Federal Student Aid Office, which employs about 1400 people, relied very heavily on contractors because of the gutting of the department in the first Trump administration. We lost a lot of talent then, so we were relying very heavily on contractors, many of whom are recovering from the pandemic, too, and they had staff issues. So once we started doing the FAFSA simplification and relying too much on our contractors who were falling short on deadlines and just not delivering to the level that we needed, we realized we needed to move it in-house. So some of the challenges that schools were facing last year were we had to overhaul federal student aid, while rolling out this new FAFSA simplified FAFSA. I filled out the FAFSA for my son three years ago with the old method. It was over an hour. I filled out my daughter last year. It was 15 minutes now. Like I said, it got me some gray hairs doing it because it was. There were some times where we were putting pressure and squeezing and trying to get people, you know, weekends, nights to get it done. We brought in community partners. We brought in the community-based organizations, the higher ed institutions. All these different networks sent, you know, YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, which is a good thing because we hope that they stay connected. But we brought that in. And at the end of the day, a lot of people just didn't get a lot of coverage. Over 500,000 more applicants applied for the last year than the previous year. So, yes, it gave us headaches. But it was something that we did that hasn't been done in 40 years, and we got it done in the Biden-Harris team. And 500,000 more students had access to federal dollars as a result of the work that we did under the Biden-Harris team. And I share that because a lot of these same people that we shifted and we empowered to get the job done in-house as opposed to waiting for these contractors, we're like, oh, three months ago. So, you know, I worry about not just the Department of Education, but the sustainability of these efforts to provide Pell dollars to students who, without it, won't be going to college. What does that mean for this country? So that in a nutshell, here's how that went down. I'm proud of the changes that were made there. And that's just a ground level. You know, we have to set higher goals of a faster completion so that more students are eligible for dollars. And I think that's the work that I'm really committed to continuing, however, whatever capacity I can because of the work that went into transforming FAFSA, the goal is to have people be successful paying back their loans. That's the goal. But what we said, let's create an on-ramp and make it based on their income. As their income goes up, they pay more because we were dealing with a million defaults a year. That's not good for anyone. So we said we're going to do this income-driven repayment plan. The more you make, the more you pay. But we want you to be successful paying them so that you don't just look the other way when the bill comes, which, you know, I heard of a story of an educator who was expecting to pay $400 a month and she's like, you know, okay, I can handle that. I got a bill for over $1000. And she didn't know. She couldn't even call anyone because there's no one that works there anymore. So it just became a problem. And we're going to start seeing, sadly, a lot of defaults and a lot of people that are not sure what to do. You know, wages being garnished, which is going to create economic instability for a lot of people who right now are barely, barely keeping it afloat. You know, I'm still waiting for the magic fix that was promised in the economy. So we're going to be struggling with this for some time. And, you know, I think we're seeing a lot of unraveling and we're going to see the impacts of that for so long.

Daniel Koh: Mr. Secretary, I wanted to ask your response to, I think, the kind of Trump slash Republican talking point around student loans macro. You know, there's this meme out there kind of that, you know, people who are getting their student loans forgiven don't deserve to do it because people have earned their way to loan forgiveness in the past or that they didn't go to college in the first place or that they're, you know, they went to school for it and they make up some degree a name that doesn't sound like one that is of pursuit of higher learning. All these reasons to not endorse the work that you did when you were secretary of education. Can I get your response to that?

Miguel Cardona: All right. To contextualize it by reminding folks that debt relief was but a fraction of what we did with regard to higher ed. We wanted to, you know, make it easier to apply for FAFSA. We held colleges accountable in ways that they've never been held accountable. One of the last things that I did before leaving was require all colleges, public, private, to provide data on the average salary of their graduates and the average debt of their graduates. Now, as a parent, that information would be helpful for me to know when I'm picking schools with my kid. Right. So debt relief was a fraction of the work that we did in higher ed. But let me get to that. You know, when we bail out the bank industry or the auto industry, airline industry or the, you know, I'll put the trains and the issues that they're having there to make sure that they're running on time, I don't hear boo. When Congress folks who get over $1,000,000 in PPP loan forgiveness because they're supposedly business owners and they needed the protection of payment for their employees and they get this money, loans forgiven, we don't hear a peep. When the president suggests $10,000 in debt relief for people whose loans have ballooned because of runaway interest costs, predatory education institutions, then people have a problem. So we provided close to 190 billion in debt relief. I'm really proud of that. Let me just break down really quickly who we're talking about. The first tranche of forgiveness were people who are totally and permanently disabled. According to, you know, they're receiving Social Security and they're totally disabled. They have no means of getting the income to pay these. The next tranche was for people who were taken advantage of by colleges. So we call that borrower defense. So we had these for-profit institutions that show up, it's the Corinthians, and there are others who basically preyed on first-generation college students. They preyed on the benefits of veterans, and they gave them a degree or a certificate that's not worth the paper it's written on. Because they know they could get those folks and put them in debt. So we discharged that while we were also going after those schools for those predatory practices. That's another tranche of public service loan forgiveness, which Sheila mentioned earlier, that was signed by George Bush in 2007. And it was a bipartisan bill that said if you work in the public sector, we know you're not doing it to become a millionaire. You're doing it because you're going to make your community better. And we were feeling then that we were losing teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters that we needed to incentivize getting into a profession that's going to pay you less than the private sector. How do we, you know, how are we going to do that? You work ten years, you pay your loans for ten years, your loans would be forgiven. That was what was signed by George Bush in bipartisan support. So from 2007 when it was signed to 2017, that's ten years, 2017 to 2021, Trump administration, 7000 people got it. They created obstacles and denied people. We came in within three years, we had over a million public servants, teachers, nurses, everyone that we called essential five years ago. Today, we're getting debt relief so that they could stay in the public sector. I can go on countless stories of people who were able to buy a home. And I'll just leave you with one just so you can know, because we talk macro, but let me give you the micro. Just one example. I was in New York talking to a teacher that's been teaching for over 15 years, loves her job. She got $20,000 in debt relief. $20,000. Not huge. She said, now I can get a bathtub for my disabled husband that he can have access to. Is that too much to ask? Serving for 20 years in New York City. You know, it costs a lot to live in New York City. She has an apartment and now she can get a handicap-accessible bathtub for her husband with the debt relief. And then the last one, another person, same conversation in New York, that now we could get a bigger apartment so my son doesn't have to sleep in the walk-in closet. That's how we're treating our educators in this country. So I don't want to hear it when they're complaining about that. And let me tell you, the more people go into default, the more it hurts that next person, that neighbor. You know, and you can't buy a home in the community. So, you know, at the macro level, really, it was about stabilizing something that's gotten out of control while we fix the root cause of the issue, which we worked aggressively to.

Sheila Nix: No, I mean, I think that's exactly right. And I think to your point, when some of these benefits are taken away and some of these things that people were promised honestly are not eligible to them, it does have an impact in the whole community because now they don't have the income and then the stores in the community may close. It's like we're starting to see some of the signs of a recession and it's self-inflicted. You know, these investments, these weren't giveaways.

Miguel Cardona: And then, you know, you throw in vouchers at the state and we're basically robbing our public schools to pay for vouchers for schools. Many of these schools wouldn't accept that student with Down syndrome that I'm talking about because it costs more to educate that child. That's what we're, that's where we're going. Right. The issue is compounded in rural communities where rural communities only have what their local neighborhood school provides right there. Not a lot of options in rural Kentucky as there are in New York City. So the impact of what's happening will be felt greater in rural communities. When I visited a rural school in Kentucky, I spoke to the students about college and career pathways and how important it was to make sure that we're not forgetting our rural communities and we're talking about giving them a skill set that they could use to get some of these high-skill, high-paying careers. Right now, many of them were like, well, you know, does that mean I have to leave Kentucky? And my answer is like, no. You know, you develop that skill set. There's two options. There's, you know, once you have a skilled workforce, you know, businesses want to go places where there's a skilled workforce. Right. But also many of these high-skill, high-paying careers are now that can be done remotely, whether it's cybersecurity or things like that. So giving those students the same opportunities requires an investment in rural communities. And for cutting Title I, it's going to impact them the most.

Daniel Koh: I just want to make sure listeners understand when you say Title I, what you mean by that.

Miguel Cardona: Yeah. Title I dollars are dollars that were earmarked to support students that are economically disadvantaged. So it's likely that community in rural Kentucky benefits from Title I dollars because the students there don't have the same resources in their community as in other, more wealthy communities. So the federal government provides some dollars to help level set, try to address disparities in achievement and access, and it could result. So Title I dollars could be used for additional reading teachers, for math support, for tutoring, for programming that gives students a leg up if they're further behind. You know, there are other communities that are more affluent and they can afford to pay more for educators, you know, or hire more teachers. They don't benefit. They don't get Title I dollars. Title I dollars are intended to offset the disparities and access across our country.

Sheila Nix: And Dan, I mentioned before there were six states in the United States where more than 20% of their education budget comes from the federal government. Those states are Alaska, Montana, South Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Kentucky. So that impacts.

Miguel Cardona: Yeah. Like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sorry, the folks that were the folks that were so adamant that we needed this are the ones that are going to be hurt the most. Yeah. And this isn't a red or blue thing. And I don't look at a kid and say, oh, this is their kids. But, you know, it's unfortunate that, and Sheila, if we were to go the next six states that I bet you most of them are going to be in the Midwest. Yeah. So that's the part that frustrates me, that people were fooled, you know what I mean? People were fooled. And it's going to hurt the people who really were thinking that they were going to benefit here. It's going to hurt them the most. And that's the hard part to swallow. And I just don't think people are aware of it. When people hear like, oh, federal government providing additional assistance to schools, they're always assuming, oh, it's into the big cities or something. But in fact, it's these states with lower populations, less income, and over, like literally 20 to 20% of their budget, over 20% of their budgets coming from the federal government. So when that money goes away, what's going to happen to those kids? You know, the states that were most adamant that we should be providing debt relief are the same states that without the federal government would be further behind because the federal government provides relief for them, basically keeps them whole. So it's just something that we don't talk about a lot, but I think we need to lift up to say, look, there's a reason why we're doing this. It provides stability so people can continue to grow.

Daniel Koh: And you had mentioned as part of your conversation, workforce training, and I think that's an important thing that I think a lot of people don't realize the role the Department of Education plays. So maybe, Sheila, if you could just outline as chief of staff how that played a role in your day-to-day response.

Sheila Nix: I mean, there was, like in the Biden administration, additional dollars going into this and an example would be like there's a lot of different ways you can do it, but in a local high school, you could have some career training. And I think Secretary Cardona has an example from Connecticut where people can go into welding and get some additional training as apprenticeship and then get an almost guaranteed job at the naval base there. But those kinds of programs are all around the country. But the more resources we can put into them, the more alternatives we're giving to students that don't want to do a traditional four-year college prep. I mean, there are lots of ways to get education and training other than what is traditionally seen as that is the four-year college. There's the community colleges with dual enrollment, with the public school in that community. So that student comes out with already an associate's degree when they graduate from high school and then maybe into a job because there's a partnership, one of these workforce agreements with an employer there. There's so much opportunity there. And I think that's one of the things that I hate almost the most upsetting dollars going away and progress that being made because it really gives everybody a chance to do a career they want if they don't want to follow the four-year traditional path. And it's so important because I think most students now need at least two years of post-high school education to be able to get a job that, you know, makes a good living. And we spent a lot of time on that. We did it, I think, as you probably remember, in conjunction with the Department of Labor, which also has some programs there. And, you know, maybe, maybe next go round, we can even do a better job of coordinating all of that together so that we get it to the, you know, to the families that need it most. And the students are most interested in it. And I think Secretary Cardona has, I think you spent a lot of your time visiting those programs and trying to uplift them and also make people know about that, make sure that like a student is in school and are interested in the path like that, that they know what exists in their own community.

Miguel Cardona: I had to visit those programs. Dr. Biden loved them.

Sheila Nix: Yeah, she did love them, though.

Daniel Koh: And it appears that the solution that Trump has to all of the areas that we outlined in this conversation is just a block grant to the states. Right. Again, nothing specific. Not a lot of tangibility to his plans. But, Mr. Secretary, as a teacher, first and foremost, as someone who has mentored countless young people, I just want to get your reaction to, first of all, just hearing the language around the Department of Education as a federal entity, but then also this notion that a block grant will solve things and, you know.

Miguel Cardona: I have a lot of concerns with that. We haven't mentioned it yet, but the Department of Education is a civil rights agency. It ensures the rights of students are protected. And we took that job very seriously. We investigated. And really when we went in on large cities, large states are not doing, in this case, special education services during the pandemic the way they should. I don't care if they're red or blue. If you look at our track record, some of the biggest cases were blue states. That goes away, that protection. So the block grant, to the second part, you know, as a commissioner of education, a former commissioner of education, I took the responsibility, you know, I took the role very seriously to make sure that the bill, whether intended to go and that we had structures in place to make sure that students got the federal dollars where they were intended to go. There's going to be such great variance not only in where we use it, but how they administer it. Talk about waste, abuse, and fraud. And no disrespect to my colleagues across the country, but now we have 50 different states having to figure out how to distribute Title I, how to distribute IDEA. You know, and then let's be honest here, we're going to have a lot of shiny new football fields in districts where kids can't read. When you say that again, we're going to have shiny football fields and districts where kids can't read. It sounds funny until it's not funny. Until one of those kids that can't read is your kid or the kid with disabilities is your kid. And you know that there's no federal oversight now saying, hey, wait a minute, you can't use the money for that. The intent of this money is to level the playing field to reduce gaps. But, you know, so not to say that I don't have confidence that states can be more innovative in some places. But look, the money was intended by Congress to do specific things. And how are you going to have an executive person saying, no, I'm going to rewrite what Congress said. That's not how democracy works. This is bigger than education funding. That's my position on that. And, you know, again, you're going to have commissioners who are going to do amazing work, but now they have the burden of dealing with the administrative costs, of distributing money, monitoring it, making sure it goes where it's supposed to go. Well, we had a federal department whose job it was to do that and more so than that, to provide support, guidance on how to do it. The shelf life of a state chief is, what, three or five years? So every 3 to 5 years, you're going to have to have a new system of making sure the money got. It's a recipe for disaster.

Sheila Nix: Well, one of the things, Secretary Cardona, that I think that you really brought to the Department of Education right from the beginning is you said we're a service agency, so we are a service agency in furtherance of helping students, helping the states, helping anyone who wants to get these dollars out to the appropriate place. And I think when under your tenure that that was the approach. It wasn't coming in and trying to punish people for, you know, a lack of oversight. It was really like, how do we get this done? How do we make sure that the students in their local communities and across all the states are getting what they need? And how can we help them do that? And how can we help the superintendent do their job, and how can we help the governor do their job? And that was the approach we took and I think was very successful in getting the dollars out effectively.

Miguel Cardona: Look, I have confidence. I always say I never bet against America's educators, whether they're chiefs, superintendents, principals. Yeah, we always got work to do. But this is really putting them in a weird spot with these block grants. Now you're going to have boards, you know, deciding things without the understanding of what's best for students. And you're going to be putting these superintendents and chiefs in a tough spot. So, sure, you mentioned a little bit. I always believed a principle of reciprocity, support and accountability have to be equal. And what's being lost here is that the support piece of it is going away. You know, we put out more guidance around mental health, around how to close gaps, how to reopen schools. We put out a lot of guidance with the dollars to support. We lifted up what's happening in Ohio, you know, in New York to learn from that or in Nebraska, they're doing something really well. Let's focus on that and create a national model. There are many times I brought leaders into the White House and we did national convenings around what's working in our schools. While you do the block grants, just send them out and just kind of look the other way. And we need to come together around best practices and be efficient instead of having 50 states working on the same problem, but just not talking to each other. The role of the federal government is more than just accountability. It's about providing support, lifting and supporting our education leaders to do their job and trusting them to do their job, but also making sure that we're providing the cover to say these dollars have to go to this as opposed to having them distributed in places where now they're deciding, you know, maybe different use for those dollars that Congress didn't intend for that to be used.

Daniel Koh: And Sheila, in addition to being chief of staff at Department of Education and I'm sure working for Secretary Cardona was a wonderful opportunity as chief of staff to Vice President Harris during her campaign. So we could go on very long about her vision, alternative vision for the country. And a big part of this podcast is about talking about what we should be espousing as the vision for the future. But if you could just very briefly talk about how you and the Vice President viewed the future of the Department of Education, should she have been elected and what we should continue to be aspiring for?

Sheila Nix: Yeah, I think, I mean, her goal was that education is part of the vision of the American dream and that every student, every family should have access to high-quality education and alternatives like the career four-year workforce path, including workforce development, where students have an opportunity to do something other than the four-year path. She spent a lot of time on that investment in small businesses, small businesses working with local communities and students to give economic opportunity across the board. I think she did during the campaign, but also as Vice President, an economic opportunity tour, making sure that students have a way to achieve, not just like get by, but really achieve and be successful. And education was a core component to that. And the only way you can really do that is to start at preschool and make the investment all the way through so that we have a well-educated workforce and give every citizen an opportunity to have a shot at the American dream. And sadly, that has been dissipating rapidly in the last three months. And I think we have to work hard to stay in the fight and try to make sure we're in a place to rebuild those tools for everyone going forward.

Daniel Koh: And speaking of staying in the fight, I think that there's a lot of people who, whether it be because of the outcome of November or just seeing what's happened, are feeling incredibly disaffected and depressed candidly about the future of our country. They see the Department of Education. They know people in their communities who are positively impacted. They're feeling incredibly disempowered and maybe even thinking about checking out. And so my last question to both of you is, if you had one minute with one of those disaffected voters, A, what would you succinctly say to them about why they should continue to fight for making sure the Department of Education doesn't go away? And B, what else would you say to them to get them excited again about being a part of the entire civic process? And Secretary Cardona, I'll start with you.

Miguel Cardona: You know, what I would say is I'm an eternal optimist. And, you know, it's hard to see what's happening to the Department of Education. It's hard to see what I know will happen as an educator. What will happen all the way through to the classroom? But I'm confident that we're going to come together. That's what we do in America. That's what we do as Americans. Right. I said before, I never bet against our schools and everybody gets our educators. They're there because they want to help kids. So and then the other point is, we've weathered the storm before. Five years ago, we were all sitting in our basement trying to figure out how to do this reopening schools. Right. And we got it done. And I'm confident that we're going to need that same resolve and we're going to come together. We just have to stop looking at things through a partisan filter and say, how can we help kids? Let's stop talking at the 50,000-foot view. Let's talk about the impact in the classroom to the people we love. What I would tell folks is, and when you think about the Department of Education, think about the people you love. If you know someone with a disability in our schools, if you know someone that is suffering from mental health needs, if you know someone that could use an alternative track to college and career planning, or someone that wants to go to college but doesn't have the money and could benefit from FAFSA, benefit from Federal Student Aid. When you think of the Department of Education, think of them. You need an organization that's going to help make sure those students get what they need. That's what I would tell them to think about.

Sheila Nix: Yeah, I agree with that. And I think most times when you talk to parents and families like that, they personally understand the value of education. So we have a lot of people on our side. And I would also remind people to the broader question that in the election, as much as the current administration seems to believe, they had some kind of mandate, they really didn't. One third of people, about one third of people voted for us, one third voted for Trump. So that means two thirds of people did not vote for this vision of America. And I think when people feel discouraged, it's important to remember that, that we can all come together and work to fight against some of these cuts and against some of these practices. But we have to use our voice. I mean, our voice is sort of the last thing that no one can take away from us. And the Vice President always says is like courage is contagious. So I think if we start, everyone in their own way, act courageous in this fight, then I think it will grow. And I feel like we're starting to see the beginning of that now. I think everyone needed a little bit of a rest, but I think that the time for resting is over and it doesn't have to be big, huge things. Like Secretary Cardona said, it's like, do something in your community. If some services are being cut on tutoring, go tutor some children. And then all of us coming together on that shared vision, I think will then push back at where we are right now.

Daniel Koh: Sheila and Secretary Cardona, thank you for coming on The People's Cabinet. 

Sheila Nix: Thank you, Dan. 

Miguel Cardona: Thanks, Dan. Take care. 

Dan Koh: We hope you enjoyed this episode of The People's Cabinet. If you did, please like, subscribe, ring that bell, and put it in the comments below who else you'd like to see sworn in. And stay tuned for new episodes every Tuesday. Let's go.