Governor Newsom’s Power Grab

In his latest budget, Governor Gavin Newsom proposed that the California Department of Education (CDE) be moved from the purview of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to the Governor’s office. The governor quotes the CEO of Families in Schools: “For too long, a fragmented and inefficient system has limited schools’ ability to partner meaningfully with families and has created barriers to equitable student success.” Governor Newsom thinks he could do a better job managing our schools, but given his performance on homelessness, housing, power, water, and public safety, there’s no evidence that’s the case.

Newsom’s argument is that California’s lackluster education performance results from inefficiencies that can be cured simply by eviscerating the Superintendent’s office, reducing the Superintendent to little more than a cheerleader. In a characteristically cynical move, he’s using the legislature to do his dirty work rather than submit his proposal to the voters because he knows they have protected the Superintendent every time prior governors tried eliminating the role.

But is Governor Newsom correct? Is it inefficient to have the CDE report to the Superintendent?

Ballotpedia lists twelve states that have an elected Superintendent of Public Instruction who manages that state’s Department of Education: Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin. Looking at the 2024 test results for eighth grade reading, California finished 38th in the nation, and of these other eleven states, only South Carolina and Oklahoma did worse than California. The remaining nine did better, the majority, while spending less money per student.

Thus, while it’s clear that California is grossly inefficient in its education spending, that inefficiency is rooted not in the Superintendent’s management of the CDE, but rather in California’s broken politics. For example, we know from cognitive science and from the example of Mississippi that the “science of reading” is the best way to teach kids to read. Mississippi mandated the science of reading in 2013, and their test scores have gone from 48th in the nation to 7th. Last year a similar bill to Mississippi’s was introduced in California, but special interests reduced it to a toothless, hollow shell. California’s politics prevent us from committing to what we know works, and reducing the Superintendent to a cheerleader for education won’t change that.

In fairness, there is one way in which this proposal will generate efficiency: currently, special interests have to spend a lot of money capturing the governor’s office and the Superintendent’s office. Under the new proposal, they’ll only have to spend money capturing the governor’s office.

That is a kind of efficiency! But that efficiency benefits only special interests, not voters or students.The most disheartening thing about the Governor’s proposal is seeing some education organizations that have worked hard to drive real change supporting it: they’re giving up on the idea of the Superintendent as a change agent.

But there’s no need to give up. In my book, A is for Average, I outline a vision of the Superintendent role that is three dimensional: an administrator of the system, a facilitator of district-level change, and a forceful advocate for change who publicly pressures the legislature and the Governor on behalf of our kids. The great beauty of democracy is that every four years, the voters have another opportunity to choose someone with that kind of vision. Our next chance is this year.

Therefore, I call on the Legislature to oppose Governor Newsom’s proposal. Because, to paraphrase Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent in Bush v. Gore, though we may never know with complete certainty the winners in this proposal, the losers are perfectly clear. They are the voters, who will see an office they have defended for almost 180 years reduced to a symbolic shell, and the students, who will continue to languish in schools that largely fail to give them the education they deserve.