California election result: Who will lead schools as superintendent?

from Carolyn JonesCalMatters

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The quiet primary race for state superintendent of public instruction wraps up Tuesday, with no clear front-runner emerging from a wide field of well-qualified candidates for the job at California’s top schools.

Ten candidates — including several legislative veterans — are fighting for the opportunity to oversee the state’s 10,000 public K-12 schools in a tumultuous time. Schools are grappling with artificial intelligence in the classroom, budget uncertainty, declining enrollment, poor test scores and other challenges.

The job itself is also up in the air. Governor Gavin Newsom in January suggested overhaul from the California school management structure, with far fewer responsibilities for the superintendent. Instead, the State Board of Education, an 11-member body appointed by the governor, and a newly appointed education commissioner will hold most of the decision-making power. The chief would act more as a political advocate.

The change would streamline the cumbersome and often opaque bureaucracy, adding transparency and accountability, Newsom said. It would also put California on par with most other states. Candidates for superintendent criticized the proposal, saying it takes power away from voters and concentrates too much control in the governor’s office.

Newsom and the current chief, Tony Thurmond, were fired this year.

Charter schools are no longer a controversial issue

The race for superintendent — at times, in previous election cycles, one of the most expensive and contested races on the ballot — has been unusually quiet this year. c latest pollheld in April, no candidate garnered more than 10% of voter support, and 32% of voters were undecided. As of last week, no candidate had raised more than a few hundred thousand dollars. That contrasts with the 2018 superintendent race between Thurmond and Marshall Tuck, a former charter school superintendent that generated more than $50 million in donations.

But there were a few surprises in the race. The California Teachers Association and its historic nemesis, the California Association of Charter Schools, supported the same candidate: Richard Barrera, a San Diego Unified school board member who was little known outside of San Diego until this year. Both groups cited his accomplishments on the school board and his commitment to public education.

The double approval shows how much the education debate has changed. For the past two decades, charter schools have been the No. 1 division in the superintendent race, generating millions in campaign donations from both parties. This year, the topic was barely mentioned, possibly because charter school enrollment appears to have fallen and both types of schools are now dealing with the same issues.

Another surprise was the popularity of Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified school board. Shaw made headlines in 2023 when she confronted Thurmond over the privacy rights of transgender students and made anti-LGBTQ policies the focus of his campaign. She was tied with Barrera in the April poll.

Other top contenders include: Member of the Assembly Al Muratsuchiformer head of the parliamentary committee on education; Josh Newmanformer head of the Senate Education Committee; Anthony Rendonformer Speaker of the Assembly and longtime administrator of an early education program; Nichelle Henderson, Los Angeles County College board member, and Ainye Long, teacher at San Francisco United.

The nonpartisan position pays $210,460 a year.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.