California voters this year are set to decide who will serve as the state’s next superintendent of public instruction. But with campaign season already underway, the job the two contenders are running for is about to change drastically.
Starting next year, the nation’s largest state will place its education department under the control of a commissioner appointed by the governor instead of the elected state superintendent who has traditionally run it. The elected superintendent’s role will still exist, but that official will be stripped of most powers. Instead, they willbecome one of 13 members of the state board of education and serve as a “nonpartisan voice for the public interest” in the state’s schools.
The change, which has been in the works since the start of the year, is the result of a new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as part of the 2026-27state budget. It creates the position of education commissioner, whom the next governor will appoint and the state senate will confirm. The law also charges that person with running the state education department, overseeing a budget of nearly $150 billion for the state’s more than 6 million students.
The commissioner will also have to develop recommendations for the elected superintendent’s future role and submit them to the governor and legislature by October 2027.
The change makes California the latest in a long line of states to shift power over schools to the governor. At the start of the 20th century, around two-thirds of states elected their chief state school officers. After California’s change takes effect, that figure will be down to 11.
Newsom characterized the move in a June news release as one that would “improve school support and accountability.” The preamble to the new state law refers to studies, reports, and legislative recommendations over the past century lamenting an “irrational governance structure that lacks coherence.”
The decision comes out of a desire for a more “integrated, internally consistent” educational system, said Jeffrey Henig, a professor emeritus of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Ohio made a similar change in 2023, when it stripped a superintendent appointed by a state board of its power to run the state education agency, placing that power instead with a governor-appointed director. Before that, Indiana switched from an elected state superintendent to an appointed one after a 2017 law change.
After California’s change takes effect, 19 states will have their top school officers appointed by governors. The remaining 20 are appointed by state boards of education, according to 2026 Ballotpedia data.
A move to ‘enhance coherence’
Newsom, whose successor will be the first to appoint an education commissioner, originally proposed the change at the beginning of the year. But the policy change has been debated in the state for a century.
Most recently, the change to a gubernatorially appointed director of the state education department was recommended in a December 2025 report by Policy Analysis for California Education, a nonpartisan research center led by faculty at multiple California universities.
The move “would enhance coherence by positioning the governor and [state board of education] as the entities responsible for oversight of policy implementation while ensuring that the [California education department] operates under a clear, direct line of accountability to the SBE, under the governor,” the report says.
The president of the California Teachers Association, David Goldberg, called the shift undemocratic in an interview with ABC10 after the law changed.
“When people have a right to vote on some things, you can’t willy-nilly take that right away,” he told the local news station.
What the candidates for state superintendent think
The two candidates running for state superintendent are Sonja Shaw, the president of the Chino Valley Unified school board, and Richard Barrera, the president of the San Diego Unified school board and a senior policy adviser at the California education department.
The elected position is officially nonpartisan, but Shaw has the Republican Party’s endorsement while Barrera has the Democratic endorsement.
Both oppose the changed scope of responsibilities for the elected position, which is currently held by Tony Thurmond, who is termed out.
Shaw said in an interview that the policy change will be confusing for voters.
“Does the seat go away?” she said. “The normal day-to-day person is confused, and I believe that’s designed by [the law’s supporters] to suppress voter turnout.”
Shaw added that voters, when given a choice in the past through ballot measures, have rejected getting rid of the elected state superintendent.
“They want an independent person they can hold accountable,” she said.
Barrera has said he believes that if there was a need for improved coordination and accountability for the state’s education system, this was not the way to do it, the San Diego Union Tribune reported.
The new law will create more division and confusion, he told the newspaper. If elected, he said, he would insert himself in the discussion on how to carry out the reforms.
If she’s elected, Shaw said she would take the state to court. “They violated the [state] constitution, and I’m ready to challenge them once given this opportunity in this position,” she said.
There’s no guaranteed effect on schools from changing the governance structure
Henig has studied the pattern of power over education shifting to governors. The impact governance reform can have on educators and students depends on both the structure of the system and those involved.
“How different actors and key positions use the power and authority that they have and use other forms of power and authority to push the [education] system in one direction or another” will be important, he said.
Although the elected state superintendent’s powers are diminished with this change, their influence might not be, Henig added. This official will still be seen as someone with expertise in education who can claim to be independent and nonpartisan.
“We could end up finding that people are misjudging how marginalized the state superintendent will be,” he said.
