Sept. 5, 2024 On Thursday, Sept. 5, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona will continue the 2024 Back-to-School Bus Tour alongside National Education Association (NEA) President Becky Pringle in Michigan. The week-long, multi-state road trip will showcase the many ways schools, families, and communities are doubling down on accelerating student achievement and raising the bar in public education with investments and other support from the Biden-Harris Administration. First, Secretary Cardona, Under Secretary James Kvaal, and NEA President Pringle will kick off the day in Grand Rapids, Michigan where they will speak to educators who have benefitted from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program. So far, the Biden-Harris Administration has approved over $69 billion in forgiveness for more than 946,000 borrowers through PSLF. Afterwards, Secretary Cardona will travel to East Lansing, Michigan where he will visit a school using a teacher apprenticeship program to recruit and develop more teachers. The Biden-Harris Administration has worked to expand these programs nationwide; while there were no registered apprenticeship programs for teachers prior to this Administration, there are now approved programs in 38 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico, up from zero at the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration. He will end the day alongside U.S. Representative Shri Thanedar in Detroit, where they will participate in a town hall with high school students to discuss the youth mental health crisis.   The Back to School Bus Tour will feature stops in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Throughout the week, Secretary Cardona, Deputy Secretary Cindy Marten, and Under Secretary James Kvaal will join national, state, and local school leaders to speak with students, parents, and educators for events that celebrate the back-to-school season and underscore the Administration’s commitment to helping students recover from the impacts of the pandemic and continue on the road to success. This year’s theme, Fighting for Public Education, highlights how school communities are using the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic investments in public education to implement evidence-based and promising and innovative strategies and accelerate academic success, to support students of all ages and backgrounds. The 2024 bus tour will celebrate public education as the American system that opened the door for so many of our nation’s success stories: from astronauts to astrophysicists, writers to engineers, musicians to mathematicians, innovative entrepreneurs in the private sector to great leaders in the public sector. Photos courtesy of the U.S. Dept. of Education