United States Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona laid out his plan to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities and criticized attacks on Black history curriculum during a visit to Birmingham today.

Cardona said he spoke with university leaders about what some of their needs are, including building maintenance and infrastructure needs. HBCU officials also told Cardona about their efforts to prepare young people for careers through programs like dual enrollment and health and mental health resources.

“It was an opportunity to hear the great work that they’re doing, how this administration has been helpful, but also what we could do to continue to support them,” Sec. Cardona said during a news conference at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute alongside Mayor Randall Woodfin.

“The historical funding [for HBCUs] hasn’t been equitable, yet they’re delivering. So the message is, you know, thank you. But also, we are still working twice as hard to get our students prepared for the jobs of today and tomorrow.”

Alabama is home to 13 public and private HBCUs – the most of any state in the country. According to Cardona, the federal government is committed to ensuring HBCUs in the state and nationwide have the same access to grants and contracts that other two- and four-year institutions do. He also said recent increases to Pell grants for will also help more students access a college degree.

When asked about any concerns that HBCUs in Alabama may have trouble attracting students given the state’s near-total abortion ban and laws that target LGBTQ youth, the secretary said he believes changes to race-based college admissions after a recent Supreme Court ruling will encourage more students to look at HBCUs.

“What we’re noticing is many of our Black students are looking at HBCUs as a place where they can go and be themselves and not have to deal with some of the not so overt attacks on Black curriculum or equity in general. That means that they need additional support, additional funding to make sure they have adequate educators and facilities to receive these students,” Cardona said.

“It’s sad that in 2023 there are students that can’t be their authentic selves on campuses across our country. We have a responsibility as educators to make sure our students feel welcome and HBCUs do that exceptionally well,” he added.

The secretary ended the press conference by briefly addressing recently released reading scores in the state that showed a slight dip from last year’s results. Both second and third grade reading scores dropped by two percentage points this year to 78% and 76%, respectively.

“Some of it is pandemic but let’s not blame the pandemic for lack of funding over time. Let’s not blame the pandemic that Alabama’s 46 out of 50 states in reading. We need to do better. We need to invest in education and the state,” he said.

Cardona said policies like school choice are derailing efforts to get students back on grade level. This year, the Alabama legislature put forth two bills to create voucher programs in the state, allowing funding that would otherwise go to Alabama public schools to help students attend private schools. Neither bill was signed into law.

“To be very frank, there are attacks on public education. You know, we want to start splitting our money between public schools and private voucher programs at a time when our schools don’t have enough funding to get our kids to read at grade level in third grade. Now we want to take money away from public schools, to pay the tuition of well-to-do families. That’s kind of twisted,” Cardona said.

“Let’s make every neighborhood school a high quality school where you want your own kids to go. That needs to be the focus, especially in our communities of color, where we see schools have been under invested-in.”