There are few races on the statewide ballot with a bigger difference in temperament between the candidates than the state superintendent of public instruction.
One, Richard Barrera, is a nearly two-decade member of the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education known for getting disparate factions to compromise. The other is Sonja Shaw, a firebrand “soccer mom” who became a public face of the anti-transgender bathroom panic after winning a seat on the Chino Valley Unified school board in 2022.
But who wins on Nov. 3 will matter a lot less than in previous elections. In June, Gov. Gavin Newsom worked out a deal to gut the position by transferring the superintendent’s only responsibility, managing the Department of Education, to the governor’s office next year. The position will continue to exist, but only because California’s constitution says it must.
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That doesn’t mean the superintendent will do nothing. The reform passed by the Legislature envisions a public watchdog role for the job and gives the superintendent a seat on the state Board of Education and the boards overseeing California’s public colleges and universities. It also leaves further reforms and reorganizations to the incoming gubernatorial administration.
So the next state superintendent of public instruction could help chart a course for what role, if any, the job plays in shaping public education at a time of existential crisis for California schools. Enrollment in public schools has been declining for years, putting future funding for education at risk and forcing districts to consider deep cuts and campus closures.
A reimagining of California’s needlessly complex educational governance structure is long overdue. Under the system ending next year, anyone can be elected as the state’s education administrator, regardless of their qualifications. The superintendent, currently termed-out Democrat Tony Thurmond, lacks a policy-setting or budgeting role but oversees the California Department of Education. The department implements policies — including curriculum, testing standards and instructional material — set by the Legislature and the state Board of Education, whose 11 members are appointed by the governor.
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It doesn’t take a graduate degree in management to see the problem. The dual-headed leadership structure needlessly complicates oversight, muddles accountability and overburdens school districts with competing initiatives but provides inadequate help implementing them, according to a 2025 report by the group Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a Stanford-based research center made up of education professors and other experts across the state.
That report recommended stripping management responsibilities from the superintendent and handing them to a governor-appointed commissioner, ideally someone with a deep background in education leadership. This would place accountability for the state’s education department unambiguously on the governor and put California in line with the 38 other states whose schools chiefs are appointed rather than elected.
“In the past, [a governor] might be able to have said, ‘Well, I’m not responsible because I don’t oversee the Department of Education,’” said Julie Marsh, a professor of education policy at USC and co-author of the PACE report. “OK, now you do.”
The governor and Legislature took the authors’ advice by passing Assembly Bill 181, but left it up to the future education commissioner to recommend further changes next year. Those could include spelling out what the next elected superintendent will actually do.
“The first [superintendent] in this role will I think set a lot of precedent,” said Heather Hough, an independent education policy expert and coauthor of the PACE report.
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Though it may not have administrative or policy power, Hough and her colleagues believe the job could become a kind of ombudsman, with the elected superintendent “using the office’s bully pulpit to … advocate for all students.”
Hough said that the superintendent could be an institutional check on the governor. In an era of declining school enrollment for the foreseeable future, it seems reasonable to keep an informed outside voice when extremely difficult decisions about school closures and cuts need to be made.“If you have this alignment between the governor and the commissioner of the Department of Education, you still want a check and balance in the system,” Hough said. “And the superintendent now is this independent elected voice who can monitor the system and say, ‘Look, we’re not doing enough for kids.’”
I tried to ask Barrera and Shaw about their plans for the revamped role, but neither wanted to talk. Whoever wins will have to do more than keep the superintendent’s chair warm — otherwise voters will have a good reason to finally scrub the redundant post from the state constitution.
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