State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond appears with Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019. In January, most duties of the elected superintendent will move to a newly created education commissioner appointed by the governor.

Whoever California’s next governor is, he’s going to be more powerful than Gavin Newsom.

With one foot out the door, Newsom just convinced lawmakers to approve a radical bureaucratic reimagining that consolidates power in the governor’s office. 

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Starting in January, almost all of the duties of the independently elected state superintendent of public instruction will be moved to the newly created position of education commissioner. This person will be appointed by the governor, effectively centralizing control over public education in California’s executive branch.

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So, when voters decide in November whether to elect Sonja Shaw or Richard Barrera as California’s next superintendent of public instruction, it will be for a role whose responsibilities and powers are largely undefined and almost certainly diminished. 

Unsurprisingly, Shaw and Barrera oppose the shakeup. 

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Newsom “rammed through one of the biggest power grabs in California history,” Shaw, the Republican president of the Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education, tweeted this week. Meanwhile, Barrera, the Democratic president of the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education, slammed the changes as an “end-run” around voters, given that Californians have rejected four attempts at the ballot to eliminate the state superintendent’s office. 

The overhaul is also vehemently opposed by teachers unions, which exercise considerable influence over California education policy. 

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It “mirrors the top-down deconstruction of public education currently unfolding at the federal level,” a coalition including the California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers wrote in a scathing June 27 letter to lawmakers. 

The unions’ objections likely help explain why Newsom waited until his last year in office to propose such an explosive........

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