{"id":148195,"date":"2026-01-24T20:50:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T20:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/148195\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T20:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T20:50:26","slug":"will-students-benefit-from-newsoms-education-overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/148195\/","title":{"rendered":"Will students benefit from Newsom’s education overhaul?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dan Walters<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""Students\"
\n\t\t\t\tStudents look forward during a lesson at the Melrose Leadership Academy in Oakland, on Sept. 23, 2024. Photo by Laure Andrillon for CalMatters<\/p>\n

This commentary was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom dropped a brief and vaguely worded section into his State of the State address earlier this month, suggesting an overhaul of how California\u2019s vast public education system is managed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s long overdue that we modernize the management of our educational system,” Newsom said, “and so in the budget I\u2019ll be submitting tomorrow, I\u2019m proposing that we unify the policymaking by the State Board of Education and the Department of Education, allowing the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to align our education policies from early childhood through college.\u201d<\/p>\n

The budget\u2019s passage on this was longer<\/a>, but still failed to explicitly say what Newsom had in mind.<\/p>\n

The proposal cited two reports that bemoaned the multiple, often overlapping and sometimes competitive, state and local entities that govern the schools. One was California\u2019s so-called Master Plan for Education, published in 2002, and the other was from Policy Analysis for California Education, or PACE, a multi-university think tank, that had been issued just weeks earlier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The budget proposed to \u201cmove oversight authority of the management of” the state Department of Education and local districts under the California Board of Education.<\/p>\n

Thus, without saying so directly, Newsom would strip the elected state superintendent of schools of managerial authority over the state Department of Education, relegating the officeholder to an ombudsman or advisor. Management would be vested in the Board of Education, which is appointed by the governor, and an appointed executive director.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese changes will strengthen governance of California\u2019s education system to provide coherence and meaningful accountability to address the needs of students, parents, teachers, school staff, and administrators,\u201d the budget proposal declared.<\/p>\n

The current superintendent, former state legislator Tony Thurmond<\/a>, complained that he was not consulted<\/a> about what would be a major overhaul of responsibility for a system that serves nearly 6 million students and is the largest single portion of the state budget. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis governance proposal\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0establish\u00a0any structures proven to move the needle on student outcomes,” Thurmond, who is running for governor, said, “and instead shifts authority to implement TK-12 education programs away from the official who California voters have elected to lead our state’s public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s apparent that Newsom\u2019s administration had been laying the groundwork for the power shift \u2014 or power grab \u2014 long before the State of the State address. The PACE report issued in December was part of the process. It called for exactly what Newsom proposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia\u2019s education governance system is a complex network of agencies and entities designed to serve the most diverse and expansive TK\u201312 population in the United States,\u201d the PACE report declared<\/a>. \u201cThis system incorporates state, regional, and local levels of authority, each tasked with specific responsibilities and oversight. At its core, the structure seeks to balance statewide education goals with local control and accountability. <\/p>\n

“However, its complexity often results in overlapping responsibilities, fragmented authority, and challenges in ensuring streamlined decision-making.\u201d<\/p>\n

PACE issued a statement backing the change from Michael Kirst, the state\u2019s foremost academic authority on education and architect of the school finance overhaul, the Local Control Funding Formula<\/a> enacted in 2012 under then-Gov. Jerry Brown.<\/p>\n

Kirst called it \u201ca new vision and a dramatic overhaul\u201d that would address a 19th century governance structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of fundamental change since then has hindered education progress,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Politics aside, Newsom\u2019s proposal would streamline governance that is now opaque and fragmented, and shields the system\u2019s many points of authority from accountability. However, by vesting almost total authority in the governor and his or her appointees, it will be more difficult for a governor to escape accountability if educational achievement, which now languishes<\/a>, doesn\u2019t markedly improve.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Dan Walters, CalMatters Students look forward during a lesson at the Melrose Leadership Academy in Oakland, on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9288,9,8,964,15,4730,23894],"class_list":{"0":"post-148195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-budget","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-commentary","13":"tag-education","14":"tag-k-12-education","15":"tag-tony-thurmond"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}