Former U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona sits down with PTHV Executive Director Andrea Prejean for one of the most direct conversations we've had on this podcast. Cardona, who grew up as a first-generation, English-learning student in Meriden, Connecticut, and went on to advise the President on education for 65 million students, talks candidly about what's at stake for public schools right now, and why authentic family engagement is not a nice-to-have. He makes a sharp distinction between political performance around "parents' rights" and the policies that actually protect families. He talks about what it meant to take new teachers into his community on a school bus, moving through poor neighborhoods and wealthy ones, and urging educators to see children in their whole context. And he answers PTHV's signature question — what are your hopes and dreams? — for the future of American public education. Dr. Miguel Cardona served as the 12th U.S. Secretary of Education under President Biden and previously worked as a fourth-grade teacher, principal, and Connecticut’s first Latino Commissioner of Education. He now leads Cardona Solutions, a consulting firm focused on equity and family engagement, and teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School and the Yale School of Management.