Education revamp unveiled

Rarely has a proposal to transform a bureaucracy moved so quickly from academia to legislation.

Starting on Page 102 of the 165-page trailer bill, the governor fleshed out how he would reshape the oversight of the state’s education. It begins a monthslong process of hearings and potential changes leading to a vote on the bill and the 2026-27 budget in June. 

A ‘two-headed system’ of oversight

Currently, the governor, the State Board of Education and the Legislature set TK-12 policies and create programs that the independently elected state superintendent is charged with implementing and overseeing through the Department of Education. 

Over the decades, as the state’s involvement in education expanded, federal requirements proliferated, and school enrollment grew to more than 6 million students, the state administration of schools became more complex. County offices of education were given additional oversight responsibilities, and in 2012, lawmakers created a semi-independent agency for school improvement, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence.

Various commissions and studies have concluded that a “two-headed” system of overlapping and fragmented responsibilities was flawed. A “Getting Down to Facts” study 20 years ago called education governance a “remarkably crazy quilt of interacting authorities that are not aligned for the purpose of accountability or action.”

This is an issue that has been discussed even further back. Four times between 1928 and 1968, the Legislature proposed abolishing the state superintendent’s office, but voters rejected it. The latest study, from 2025, by Policy Analysis for California Education, takes a different approach: keep the state superintendency but change its role through statute.

“California can no longer postpone reforms that have been overdue for a century,” the PACE report said.

Shepherding the bureaucracy through change, tactfully called “realignment,” would begin by moving the 1,750-employee Department of Education, along with operations of the two state schools for deaf students and a school for blind students, to the governor. There would be an education commissioner, appointed by the governor, who would be the same as other cabinet secretaries, part of the executive branch. That person ideally will have a background running a large education enterprise — a record that the last four elected state superintendents, all with legislative careers, lacked.  

The PACE report outlines additional changes needed to clarify lines of authority and make operations more accountable and effective that go beyond Newsom’s proposal. But moving the department as the first step, “is super-important; the rest can come later,” said Heather Hough, the former executive of PACE and a co-author of the PACE report.

Under realignment, governing TK-12 will be a shared responsibility of the governor and the 11-member State Board of Education that the governor appoints. The trailer bill outlines the process:

• The transfer of authority will take place on Jan. 1, 2027 — after the terms of Gov. Gavin Newsom and State Superintendent Tony Thurmond have ended.

• The education commissioner will oversee all operations and staff of the Department of Education and will be responsible to the State Board of Education and the governor. 

• The transfer itself will not increase funding for the department.

• Most of the State Board of Education staff, which had grown significantly under governors Jerry Brown and Newsom will become Department of Education employees.

• However, the State Board will retain its authority over the department as the top body that determines education policy. “It is the intent of the Legislature to streamline and strengthen state governance (of TK-12) under the State Board of Education,” the governor’s trailer bill says. 

• The five current deputy superintendents of public instruction will become employees of the Department of Education as of Jan. 1, 2027. A governor will be able to appoint up to 16 deputies to the Education Commissioner.

• The State Superintendent’s staff, however, will shrink significantly to about a dozen employees, including a deputy superintendent and three associate superintendents appointed by the State Board, plus assistants and clerical help.

What’s next for the state super?

What exactly the newly elected state superintendent would do is not clear in the trailer bill proposal — and most likely would evolve.  Newsom’s vision for the job is different from PACE’s.

The trailer bill states that the state superintendent would become a troubleshooter for education, with a bird’s-eye view over all segments “to foster needed alignment and coordination of education policies from early childhood through post-secondary education with new governing board roles and responsibilities.”  

It assumes candidates would run for the office with this in mind. The newly configured state superintendent, already a voting member of five policy-setting education bodies, would add two more. The superintendent could leverage the positions to remedy bottlenecks and weak linkages in the systems.

The state superintendent already serves as:  

• California State University trustee;

• University of California regent; 

• Member of the Commission on Teacher Credentialing;

• Member of the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence;

• Ex officio member of CalSTRS, the teacher pension system. 

The state superintendent would now also become a voting member of: 

• State Board of Education, replacing one of the governor’s appointees; 

• The board of the California Community Colleges.

In contrast, the PACE report argued for turning the state superintendent into an ombudsman for TK-12, evaluating whether new programs like community schools and transitional kindergarten were introduced effectively. Doing this job well would require additional resources to commission research or hire staff; state superintendents would have to persuade the Legislature to allocate more funding.

“Having the staff akin to that of a legislator is not sufficient for conducting research and evaluation that we had proposed,” said Hough, who authored the PACE report. “But 12 people could gain some sense of what is happening in the state.”

Both Hough and Brooks Allen, executive director of the State Board and an education adviser to Newsom, agree that there is value in having an independent voice on education in the state. Unfettered from running the department, the State Superintendent would be better able to argue and advocate on behalf of voters, they said.

Newsom is putting considerable political capital behind a governance issue that he won’t personally benefit from. He has solicited strong support for the plan from Sacramento organizations representing school administrators, school business officers, county offices of education and advocacy groups, including Children Now, Californians Together and Families in Schools.  

This week, the California School Boards Association became the latest to announce its support. CEO and Executive Director Vernon Billy called the proposal “an important first step away from a patchwork of disconnected programs and toward a unified strategy of support that helps (districts) accelerate overall student performance and close persistent achievement gaps.”

Conspicuous by their silence are the California Federation of Teachers and the larger California Teachers Association. For decades, CTA, in particular, has been dominant in electing and re-electing state superintendents in sync with its views.

Breaking with Newsom, Thurmond blasted the proposal, saying it won’t do anything to improve student achievement. Several candidates to succeed him, with the exception of former state Sen. Josh Newman, also criticized the plan. 

By June, should the proposal pass as part of the governor’s budget, the candidates will know whether the office they’d get in November would be vastly different from the one they’re campaigning for now.  

EdSource, an independent nonprofit organization founded in 1977, is dedicated to providing analysis on key education issues facing the state and nation. Go to edsource.org to learn more.