$43 million and attack ads. It’s the race for California schools chief — and it’s between two Democrats.
One of the loudest and most expensive state races in the country is between two Democrats vying to win the nonpartisan position of superintendent of public instruction in California. More money is being spent on the race — for a position that has no independent policymaking power — than in most U.S. Senate campaigns.
The fight — the costliest in the state’s history for this post, with more than $43 million in campaign contributions, according to EdSource — is between state legislator Anthony Thurmond and Marshall Tuck, a former charter school network president.
Thurmond, who was elected to the California State Assembly in 2014 from the East Bay, has been a teacher, social worker, city councilman and school board member. Tuck is a former banker who became the first president of the Green Dot network of charter schools in Los Angeles. After that, he founded a nonprofit that used privately donated money from the wealthy to help turn around troubled traditional public schools. Four years ago, he ran unsuccessfully for state superintendent in a race that cost some $30 million (with a lot of it coming from billionaires backing Tuck).
The state superintendent cannot independently make education policy, but instead heads the California State Board of Education, which does make policy. The superintendent chief runs the state Department of Education and has a bully pulpit.
The fight between Thurmond and Tuck is the latest chapter in a long-running debate about public education in a state with a scandal-ridden charter school sector and severely underfunded traditional school districts. California has more charter schools — which are publicly funded but privately operated — and more charter Continue reading: $43 million and attack ads. It’s the race for California schools chief — and it’s between two Democrats. - The Washington Post
