Actions taken by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the legislature after the June gubernatorial primary increase the importance of education in the fall election between former Biden cabinet secretary Xavier Becerra and former Fox TV analyst Steve Hilton. At the same time, the actions drastically diminish the role of the state superintendent of public instruction in state oversight of education and threaten to diminish the importance of what is expected to be a heated race for that office in November.
The education governance reforms shift responsibility over the state Department of Education from the superintendent of public instruction, a nonpartisan statewide elective office, to a newly appointed education commissioner in the governor’s office. The reforms were included in the California 2026 Budget Act signed into law by Governor Newsom on July 10. That budget provided over $150 billion in education funding for pre-K to grade 12 students, a record amount for California. The reforms are intended to unify authority over development of educational policy that currently is made by the governor, the legislature and the state Board of Education with the administration of programs and oversight of school districts that is currently the purview of the state Department of Education headed by the state superintendent of public instruction.
The distribution of education policy, budget, and administration roles has been criticized by state leaders since shortly after they went into effect in the 1920s. Today, the most persuasive voices within the state educational establishment, school district leaders, lobbyists, philanthropic groups, and other experts have concluded that the existing system promotes confusion at the local level because the state Department of Education regulators lack input into the policies they are administering, have little influence over funding decisions made by the governor and the legislature, and are largely insulated from them.
As Superintendent Thurmond noted, jurisdictional or bureaucratic changes do not guarantee or even suggest any improved educational outcomes for California public school students.
The new law, set to go into effect in January when California will have elected a new governor and superintendent of public instruction, vests “all executive and administrative functions of the Department [of Education]” in the education commissioner who will be appointed by the governor and confirmed by a majority of the 40-member state Senate. The state superintendent of public instruction, still elected by the voters, will be relegated to managing a handful of deputies and serving on the State Board of Education, University of California Board of Regents, and Community College Board of Governors. One of the major California teacher unions made this point in being one of the few major opponents of the bill.
Tony Thurmond, the current state superintendent of public instruction who leaves office in January, has complained of his almost complete exclusion from the governor/legislature deliberations that produced the changes and stripped his successor of traditional authorities. Richard Barrera and Sonja Shaw, the two candidates running in November for the largely hollowed out office, have also criticized the change. Shaw has blasted it as defying the will of the voters while Barrera has optimistically focused on the continued value of the office as a bully pulpit for education and children, particularly as a member of the state education boards.
Neither Xavier Becerra nor Steve Hilton has publicly commented on the reforms; primarily they were enacted after the June primary vote. The Becerra campaign website does not currently discuss education among his priorities, while the Hilton website promises to “ensure that 100% of students meet state math and education standards,” attacks teacher unions, vows to “protect parental rights,” and decries “the failure of our government-run schools [a]s an outrageous scandal we cannot tolerate any longer.”
The legislative reforms make selection of the education commissioner one of the next governor’s most important appointments. As Superintendent Thurmond noted, however, jurisdictional or bureaucratic changes do not guarantee or even suggest any improved educational outcomes for California public school students. In the short term, they enable the current governor and legislature to point to the reforms as their response to poor educational outcomes, and still be able to ask future voters for more time for the reforms to be implemented and take effect. Similarly, adoption of the reforms at the state level permits local school districts and educators to make the same “let’s wait and see” response to parents and communities who want better educational outcomes from the record amount of dollars being spent on education. Meanwhile, the state superintendent of public instruction, the one statewide elected official focused solely on education, has significantly less clout. Public education becomes just another one of many important issues competing for the governor’s time, attention, and action.
Many California education reformers believe that strengthening the state’s role in education will lead to replicating the so-called “Mississippi Miracle” that has increased that state’s public school academic outcomes over the past decade, going from worst to first. But the differences between the two states are vast. Mississippi has fewer than half a million students enrolled in slightly over 1,000 schools. California has over 1,000 school districts that serve 5.7 million students. California has more students in its private schools than Mississippi enrolls in its entire public school system. Even if the next governor makes education his highest priority, classrooms and school board meetings will continue to be the places that make the difference for California school children.
