When Gavin Newsom ran for governor in 2018, education was front and center of his campaign. His central pledge was to create a hugely ambitious “cradle to career system of education,” beginning at birth through college and into the workplace.
Yet in this election season, education has been a non-issue. It has barely come up in any of the debates – in fact, none of the moderators asked a single question about it. Go to the candidate’s web pages, and almost all make a range of pledges on education. Yet I can’t recall seeing any candidate’s television ads focusing on the issue.
State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, elected twice to his statewide office, is on the ballot for governor. But his candidacy has barely registered with voters.
This is worth sitting with for a moment. About 40 percent of California’s general fund, roughly $127 billion in the next school year, will go to K-12 schools and community colleges under Proposition 98. The next governor might well inherit more direct authority over education policy and spending, because of legislation being considered in Sacramento that would place the California Department of Education in the governor’s office rather than under the direction of the State Superintendent.
And yet the candidates have largely treated education as a campaign footnote.
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When Gov. Brown returned to the governorship for a second time in 2010, average spending on education per student was a mere $8,340, putting California dead last in the nation. During the current school year, average spending per students is $24,500, an enormous increase, putting California at the national average, after adjusting for high labor costs in the state. That’s according to an analysis from the exhaustive Getting Down to Facts initiative issued last month.
“We are in a lot better shape in terms of the money, and the services kids had before than we were before,” said Michael Kirst, the Stanford professor emeritus who was Gov. Brown’s closest education advisor for all his four terms as governor.