Cabaldon was Chair of the Jobs, Education & the Workforce Committee at the United States Conference of Mayors, where he was elected to the board in June 2011 and then as a trustee in 2019. He had led West Sacramento to be one of the first small/medium cities in the nation to connect all children to high-quality preschool, winning the "America's Most Livable Small City" award from the mayors' organization. He joined a network of a dozen cities in digital badge initiative launched at South by Southwest's education festival to support out-of-classroom learning, skills, and microcredentials for local teens; this work became a national model. Building on the preschool and digital badging initiatives, Cabaldon launched the West Sacramento Home Run, adding college savings accounts for kindergarteners, tuition-free community college for all graduating public school seniors, and a forthcoming scholarship. In 2020, he made West Sacramento the first city in the nation to send a letter of college admission and a scholarship offer to every graduating high school senior. The West Sacramento Home Run has been widely recognized as one of the nation's most innovative and comprehensive initiatives to improve educational attainment and economic opportunity.