Newsom strikes to reshape who runs California’s colleges below price range plan

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday unveiled a sweeping proposal to overtake how California’s schooling system is ruled, calling for structural adjustments that he mentioned would shift oversight of the Division of Schooling and redefine the position of the state’s elected colleges chief.

The proposal, which is a part of Newsom’s state price range plan that will probably be launched Friday, would unify the policymaking State Board of Schooling with the division, which is liable for finishing up these insurance policies. The governor mentioned the change would higher align schooling efforts from early childhood via school.

“California can not postpone reforms which were advisable usually for a century,” Newsom mentioned in a press release. “These vital reforms will carry higher accountability, readability, and coherence to how we serve our college students and colleges.”

Few particulars had been offered about how the position of the state superintendent of public instruction would change, past a higher deal with fostering coordination and aligning schooling coverage.

The adjustments would require approval from state lawmakers, who will probably be within the state Capitol on Thursday for Newsom’s final State of the State speech in his last yr as governor.

The proposal would implement suggestions from a 2002 report by the state Legislature, titled “California’s Grasp Plan for Schooling,” which described the state’s Okay-12 governance as fragmented and “with overlapping roles that typically function in battle with each other, to the detriment of the academic providers supplied to college students.” Newsom’s workplace mentioned related issues have been raised repeatedly since 1920 and had been echoed once more in a December 2025 report by analysis heart Coverage Evaluation for California Schooling.

“The sobering actuality of California’s schooling system is that too few colleges can now present the circumstances wherein the State can pretty ask college students to be taught to the best requirements, not to mention put together themselves to fulfill their future studying wants,” the Legislature’s 2002 report said. These most harmed are sometimes low-income college students and college students of shade, the report added.

“California’s schooling governance system is complicated and too usually creates challenges for varsity leaders,” Edgar Zazueta, govt director of the Assn. of California Faculty Directors, mentioned in a press release offered by Newsom’s workplace. “As obligations and calls for on colleges proceed to extend, educators want governance programs which can be designed to higher help optimistic pupil outcomes.”

The present price range allotted $137.6 billion for schooling from transitional kindergarten via the twelfth grade — the best per-pupil funding degree in state historical past — and Newsom’s workplace mentioned his proposal is meant to make sure these investments translate into extra constant help and improved outcomes statewide.

“For many years the fragmented and inefficient construction overseeing our public schooling system has hindered our college students’ potential to succeed and thrive,” Ted Lempert, president of advocacy group Youngsters Now, mentioned in a press release offered by the governor’s workplace. “Main reform is crucial, and we’re thrilled that the Governor is tackling this difficulty to enhance our youngsters’ schooling.”