The real losers in their crass blatant power play will be California’s children’
California Governor Gavin Newsom and Democrats slipped a gut-and-amend bill into the budget to strip power from the elected State Schools Superintendent and instead create a new commissioner position for a Governor appointed politician, taking all power away from the voters. They know Sonja Shaw will win, and are preparing to circumvent it.
Newsom is plotting a major restructuring of California’s K-12 education governance that significantly diminishes the powers of the elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction, a constitutional office, because a Republican is leading following California’s primary election.
Think about that. This is what a monarchy does.
The California Constitution (Article IX, Section 2) requires that a Superintendent of Public Instruction “shall be elected by the qualified electors of the State at each gubernatorial election.” But that won’t matter if Newsom successfully removes powers from the Schools Superintendent.
“Once again, Governor Newsom and the Democrat legislative supermajority have thumbed their noses at parents,” Lance Izumi, Senior Director of Education for the Pacific Research Institute, told the Globe. “Sonja Shaw, a school board president who galvanized grassroots parent support across California to finish first in the June primary for state superintendent of public instruction, threatens the leftist public education status quo. She came in ahead of the CTA-endorsed candidate and is poised to become the first Republican state superintendent since the 1960s. Newsom and the Democrats can’t let that happen so they steal the power of the state superintendent in order to give it to Xavier Becerra, their gubernatorial candidate who they believe will be elected in November. They are willing to torpedo democracy—the ability of people to put a parent champion like Sonja Shaw in charge of the California Department of Education—in order to preserve their oligarchic stranglehold on the state’s public schools. As usual, the real losers in their crass blatant power play will be California’s children.”
“The same progressive education oligarchy that has given California bottom-of-the-barrel student achievement will continue to rule for the benefit of the special interests and to the detriment of families,” Izumi added.
A new Education Commissioner, appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, will handle executive and administrative functions, run the department, and report to the Governor and the State Board of Education, most of who are appointed by the Governor. The Superintendent’s role shifts toward policy advocacy, coordination across education levels, K-12 through higher ed, and independent evaluation, according to EdSource.
This is a clear case of changing the rules amid an election where a reform-minded outsider like Sonja Shaw has momentum. The November race will still matter for the advocacy role and any remaining powers, but day-to-day control of the department will shift to the appointee, because Democrats in control can never let anyone else win, ever. Not when they have a supermajority.
Sonja Shaw, candidate for Superintendent of Schools in the California Primary Election, won the top spot, against 9 other candidates. Shaw won 22.6% of the vote, and 1,737,360 votes.
Her response to Gov. Newsom’s and Democrats’ scheme:
“CA families said NO to failing schools and insider politics. So Sacramento’s answer? A gut-and-amend bill to strip power from the elected Superintendent and hand it to a Governor-appointed bureaucrat. They know change is coming, and they’re trying to stop voters before November.”
