Decision time has come for Newsom’s proposal to shift control of the California Department of Education

The fate of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to shift control of the California Department of Education from the state superintendent of public instruction to a new education commissioner answering to future governors and the State Board of Education will become clearer within the next week.

Supporters and opponents disagree not only on the merits of the proposal but also on how it should move forward.

Ted Lempert, president of Children Now and a leading advocate for the change, expects the plan to be included in Newsom’s 2026-27 budget package, with final details negotiated between the governor and legislative leaders before the July 1 budget deadline. 

Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, believes that Assembly Bill 2117, which he co-authored, will become the vehicle for enacting an alternate version of Newsom’s reorganization concept, with passage after lawmakers return from their summer recess.

And David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, hopes that CTA’s opposition helps to kill the concept within the next week or so. 

“The undemocratic nature of this (Newsom’s approach) is just something that’s impossible to get around,” he said.

Newsom’s hardly novel idea

Newsom’s proposal is neither new nor radical. A majority of states have a governance structure in which the governor or the state board of education appoints the chief education officer responsible for running the state’s education bureaucracy. Today, only 12 states elect their state superintendent, down from 33 a century ago.

Numerous commissions and studies have urged California to realign its education governance structure under an experienced education manager — the equivalent of secretaries running other state departments.  

California’s current and three previous elected state superintendents have been legislators without a background in running a complex education system. Electing a superintendent every four years “creates incentives” to overstate positive data and potential reforms to enhance their reelection, concluded a lengthy report released in December by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a nonprofit research institute based at Stanford University.

The PACE authors criticized the lack of coherence and weak accountability when governors and legislators create educational programs and reforms, but then lack the authority to implement them, which is the state superintendent’s job. 

PACE recommended appointing an education executive as the first step toward a broader realignment of the state’s education governance system. Newsom embraced that recommendation in his proposed state budget in January.  

“It’s time to modernize the management of our educational system,” he said in his State of the State speech to the Legislature in January. “I believe that’s an important and long overdue reform.”

Newsom is proposing to make the switch through the budget process, as part of a massive trailer bill accompanying the 2026-27 budget, which will be completed within the next week. That process would short-circuit the legislative process of proposing legislation that each house of the Legislature would consider and amend after public hearings.

That is one reason Goldberg of CTA dismisses the proposal as undemocratic. Another is that it would defy the will of the public one month after people voted for a constitutional office with ballot language that said the state superintendent “heads the Department of Education and carries out policies set by the State Board of Education.”

Goldberg noted that voters have repeatedly rejected efforts to weaken the office of the superintendent. Four times in the past century, voters have rejected initiatives to abolish the state superintendent position, the last in 1968. 

But Newsom is proposing to restructure the position, not eliminate it. State superintendents would remain the chief advocates for policies and cite their election as evidence that voters support those positions.

Newsom envisions future state superintendents as a coordinator of education, from early to higher education. They would become a voting member of the State Board of Education and the community colleges’ Board of Governors, in addition to existing roles as a UC regent and CSU trustee.

CTA and other opponents have characterized the plan as a power grab by Newsom and the Legislature, even though Newsom, in his last months in office, would not benefit from any of the changes.

CTA historically has played a central role in the election of the state superintendent, combining its campaign resources with the organizational strength of its more than 300,000 members. No candidate has been elected without CTA’s support since former State Superintendent Bill Honig’s reelection in 1990. 

If San Diego Unified trustee Richard Barrera, who beat out three prominent Democratic legislators in the open primary this month, prevails in November, he would be the fifth straight CTA-backed superintendent. 

Confusing lines of authority

What’s been lost in the debate, said Lempert, is that Newsom and legislators would be fixing the mistakes of a cumbersome and fractured oversight authority that they have created by statute over decades.

The PACE report cited California’s complex system of identifying hundreds of districts that need academic assistance. With the state Department of Education, county offices of education and the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, a small agency, all dividing responsibilities, districts have found the assistance inconsistent and sometimes confusing. 

Lempert also points to the state’s conflicting and ambiguous responses to the COVID pandemic for creating frustration among districts and parents. Critics of the current system point to the uneven rollout of multibillion-dollar investments in transitional kindergarten, expanded learning programs and community schools.

In the future, an education commissioner would coordinate new programs, but ultimately, Lempert said, “the buck stops at the governor,” who would be “ultimately responsible for the implementation.”  

Uncertain future for legislation

Assemblymember Alvarez was also dissatisfied with running the realignment through the budget process. So he and Assemblywoman Darshana Patel, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee and is also from San Diego, created AB 2117 to flesh out Newsom’s plan and give the Legislature more say.

The bill would: 

• Require Senate confirmation of the new education commissioner’s appointment; 
• Require independent evaluations of major education investments, such as community schools, that cost more than $500 million annually;   
• Redefine the elected state superintendent’s role as an independent evaluator of the effectiveness and efficiency of state education programs; and
• Replace four governor-appointed members of the State Board of Education with members appointed by the Legislature.

The Assembly easily passed the bill last month; the Senate must also approve it by July 2 for it to move forward. Alvarez said last week that he fully expects it will, notwithstanding Newsom’s preference for backroom negotiations.

Lempert’s Children Now collected signatures from leaders of 950 organizations and advocacy groups on an 80-word statement that calls for the realignment plan. 

“By making this long overdue change this year, we can do right by kids and bring California in line with other states,” the statement says.

Signers include the California School Boards Association, the Association of California School Administrators, the California County Superintendents and the California Association of School Business Officials.

Lempert and Newsom can argue that those most familiar with the state education bureaucracy are most in support of changing it.

This story was originally published by EdSource.