With the race for California’s top public education post still too close to call, it’s raising questions about the degree to which parental concerns could override the powerful unions that spent millions to keep the incumbent in office.
Many thousands of ballots are left to count, but the nearly 6 million that have been counted since the June 7 primary have not been enough for the current Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond, to avoid a runoff in November.
It is hugely significant that Thurmond has failed to attain 50 percent of the vote, Lance Izumi, senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute, told the Northern California Record by email.
“He was running against opponents who had minuscule funding and very little name identification,” Izumi said. “He had the backing of the Democrat Party and the state's powerful teachers’ unions. He had a comparatively huge campaign war chest, plus the California Teachers Association’s massive independent expenditures on his behalf.”
The vote clearly indicates that more than half of all voters are dissatisfied with California’s public schools, Izumi said.
“The people of California are angry about how public education leaders have handled the COVID pandemic,” Izumi said. “The nosedive in public school enrollment and the skyrocketing popularity of homeschooling in the state demonstrates that parents are fed up with the low achievement, COVID mandates, ideological and cultural indoctrination, and unresponsiveness of the public schools."
Research shows that the learning losses suffered by students during the pandemic will cause a 6-9 percent decrease in lifetime earnings, Izumi said.
“But where was Tony Thurmond as California public education imploded?” Izumi said. “Instead of being a leader trying to address these massive problems affecting our state's children, which have all occurred under his watch, Thurmond has failed to propose innovative solutions and often deferred to Governor Newsom's education appointees.”
Izumi noted that when Thurman made the news, it’s often been for the various scandals that have plagued his tenure, including hiring a close friend to be California's first deputy superintendent for equity.
“However, the liberal publication Politico reported that his friend lived, voted, and owned a business in Pennsylvania, which appeared to violate California's employment rules for the position," Izumi said. "Thurmond could never explain why someone living in Pennsylvania was working for California's public school system or why the job was never publicly posted. The ensuing firestorm of criticism forced Thurmond's crony to resign and left Thurmond sullied and tainted. Further, Thurmond appears to be an extremely poor manager and boss at the California Department of Education. Complaints have been lodged against him alleging a hostile work environment, plus, not coincidentally, his office has seen a huge turnover in personnel.”
Meanwhile, the results to date show voters demanding accountability.
“The teachers unions may have the money, but parents have the numbers--voting numbers,” Izumi said. “The unions can dump all the cash they want into a campaign for Thurmond, but running endless ads telling people that Tony Thurmond is a great education leader simply doesn't pass the sniff test for parents.”
As Thurmond has been facing criticism for staffing and management decisions, parents have continued to fight to make their voices heard on learning loss, emotional and mental health concerns, lockdowns here lasting far longer than other states, ideological instruction, and questions about transparency.
“The recall of the three school board members in highly progressive San Francisco earlier this year demonstrated just how angry and fed up parents are,” Izumi said.
The June 7 primary results are due to be certified by July 15.
“People need to know that California's COVID catastrophe in public education did not have to happen,” Izumi said. “Research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that California ranked 50th among the states for COVID-related disruption to the education system. In contrast, Florida, which re-opened its schools much earlier than California, had among the fewest disruptions to education and ranked third from the top."
“When November comes around and voters have a choice between Thurmond and someone else, ‘Not Tony Thurmond’ may win,” Izumi said.