WILMINGTON, Del. — Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden intro­duced Miguel Car­dona as his pick for edu­ca­tion sec­re­tary on Wednes­day, say­ing Connecticut’s edu­ca­tion chief and life-long cham­pi­on of pub­lic schools is the right pick to lead the depart­ment as the nation strug­gles to edu­cate stu­dents safe­ly dur­ing the pandemic.

The selec­tion deliv­ers on Biden’s promise to nom­i­nate some­one with expe­ri­ence work­ing in pub­lic edu­ca­tion and would ful­fill his goal of installing an edu­ca­tion chief who stands in sharp con­trast to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Bet­sy DeVos.

Unlike DeVos, a school choice advo­cate whom Biden says is an oppo­nent of pub­lic schools, Car­dona is a prod­uct of them, start­ing when he entered kinder­garten unable to speak English.

Dur­ing remarks in Wilm­ing­ton, Delaware, Biden called Car­dona a “bril­liant” edu­ca­tor who would help fur­ther his administration’s com­mit­ment to re-open­ing schools safely.

“We can do it if we give school dis­tricts, com­mu­ni­ties and states the clear guid­ance and resources that aren’t already in their tight bud­gets,” Biden said, adding that address­ing the issue “requires some­one who under­stands the need to pre­vent the pan­dem­ic from fur­ther exac­er­bat­ing the inequities in our edu­ca­tion system.”

Ear­ly next year, Biden said he’d send to Con­gress a plan on next steps for the edu­ca­tion sys­tem, includ­ing fund­ing to keep edu­ca­tors employed and safe­ly reopen schools.

In intro­duc­ing Car­dona, Biden not­ed his focus to broad­en remote learn­ing across com­mu­ni­ties in need and ensure schools in his state had appro­pri­ate safe­ty gear.

“That’s the vision, resolve and ini­tia­tive that are all going to help us con­tain this pan­dem­ic and reopen our schools safe­ly,” Biden said. “It’s a stan­dard of care that comes from hav­ing taught in a class­room. … He is a sec­re­tary of edu­ca­tion for this moment.”

Car­dona, 45, was raised in a hous­ing project in Meri­den, Con­necti­cut, and went through the city’s pub­lic schools before return­ing to work as a fourth-grade teacher in the dis­trict in 1998. At age 28, he had become the youngest prin­ci­pal in the state before work­ing his way up to assis­tant super­in­ten­dent of the district.

Ref­er­enc­ing his immi­grant grand­par­ents and bicul­tur­al upbring­ing, Car­dona sev­er­al times made com­ments in in Spanish.

“I, being bilin­gual and bicul­tur­al, am as Amer­i­can as apple pie and rice and beans,” a back­ground he said gives him per­spec­tive on how to address the nation’s edu­ca­tion inequalities.

“I know how chal­leng­ing this year has been for stu­dents, for edu­ca­tors and for par­ents. I’ve lived those chal­lenges along­side mil­lions of Amer­i­can fam­i­lies,” Car­dona said. “It’s tak­en some of our most painful long­stand­ing dis­par­i­ties and wrenched them open even wider.”

Car­dona was appoint­ed to the top edu­ca­tion post in Con­necti­cut just months before the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic broke out in March. When schools moved to remote learn­ing, he hur­ried to deliv­er more than 100,000 lap­tops to stu­dents across the state. Since then, how­ev­er, he has increas­ing­ly pressed schools to reopen, say­ing it’s harm­ful to keep stu­dents at home.

If con­firmed, his first task will be to expand that effort across the nation. Biden has pledged to have a major­i­ty of U.S. schools reopened with­in his first 100 days in office. He is promis­ing new fed­er­al guide­lines on school open­ing deci­sions, and a “large-scale” Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment effort to iden­ti­fy and share the best ways to teach dur­ing a pandemic.

Cardona’s posi­tion on reopen­ing schools has some­times put him at odds with not only teach­ers unions, which have called for school build­ings to be closed until safe­ty mea­sures are met, but also with some par­ents who say schools should be ordered to open.

But despite their occa­sion­al con­flict with him, a coali­tion of Con­necti­cut edu­ca­tion unions sup­port­ed his can­di­da­cy as Biden’s edu­ca­tion sec­re­tary. Car­dona was also backed by the Con­gres­sion­al His­pan­ic Cau­cus, which has pressed Biden to appoint more Lati­nos to Cab­i­net positions.

Beyond the pan­dem­ic, Biden’s edu­ca­tion sec­re­tary will also be tasked with revers­ing an array of poli­cies enact­ed by DeVos. Biden has vowed to revoke Trump admin­is­tra­tion poli­cies includ­ing DeVos’ new rules on the han­dling of cam­pus sex­u­al assault cas­es, and he promised to restore sev­er­al Oba­ma-era rules that DeVos revoked or rewrote.

Biden’s edu­ca­tion plans also include mea­sures that align with Cardona’s inter­ests. The Demo­c­rat has pledged to triple fed­er­al Title I fund­ing for the need­i­est schools and has pro­posed free preschool as well as poli­cies meant to diver­si­fy the nation’s teach­ing force.

Meg Kin­nard in Colum­bia, South Car­oli­na, contributed.