First lady Jill Biden and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited Connecticut on Wednesday to tout summer education programs in the state.
The duo pointed to the American Rescue Plan, which provided funding to states to host the learning programs and make up for learning loss that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic.
The first lady is coming off a week of controversy, where she was slammed for comparing the Hispanic community to “breakfast tacos” while speaking at an event.
“I am a teacher, so I was teaching on Zoom too. But a lot of us missed a lot of time, a lot of days. It was so hard to learn from Zoom, don’t you think? So what my husband did, he said ‘our kids in this country need to catch up on their learning.’ So he wrote this plan, the American Rescue Plan, that said we are going to catch up all our kids and we are going to do it in the most fun way possible,” the first lady said during the visit.
Biden and Cardona spoke at the Horizons summer learning program at Albertus Magnus College.
“Just a great way to highlight the effects of this American Rescue Plan funding. Without it, we would not have been able to serve these 46 kids in New Haven and several many other youth across the country. So that’s the excitement for us is to be able to share that. And to show the secretary and the first lady how important this funding has been to organizations like ours,” added CEO of Horizons National Lorna Smith.
While Biden and Cardona tout the funding, many Republicans argue Democrats worsened learning loss by extending school closures longer than necessary. Studies show that lockdowns from the pandemic impacted underserved communities the most.
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Cooper Moran is a reporter for The Connecticut Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Jill Biden and Miguel Cardona” by Jill Biden.Â
