The San Francisco Chronicle Endorses Richard Barrera for State Superintendent.
California needs a school superintendent who puts kids first. Here’s our pick
By Chronicle Editorial Board, Opinion Staff
May 12, 2026
Richard Barrera has helped guide the San Diego Unified School District to enviable student success results. That track record and a history of standing up to teachers unions and working collaboratively with them make him well-suited for superintendent of public instruction, the editorial board says.
California public schools are not in great shape.
Last school year, just 33% of students met or exceeded state science standards, 37% math standards and 49% English language arts standards. Many school districts are confronting severe budget deficits as enrollment declines, teachers unions push for raises and expanded benefits amid soaring costs of living, and liabilities mount from sex abuse lawsuits. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has sought to withhold nearly $1 billion in funding from California kindergarten through 12th-grade schools and is pushing to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
It’s imperative that voters in California’s June 2 primary election select a nonpartisan superintendent of public instruction who can meet the moment.
That won’t be easy — in part because no one knows what the job will entail this time next year.
Education policy, funding priorities and academic standards are crafted by the Legislature, the governor and members of the state Board of Education, who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. The superintendent oversees implementation of policies and leads the California Department of Education, a largely administrative agency that allocates federal and state funding, collects and reports data and ensures districts are complying with state and federal laws.
But that role is facing an overhaul.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed shifting oversight of the Department of Education to a newly created education commissioner appointed by the governor. The superintendent would shift to focus on education advocacy and strengthening coordination between the state’s pre-kindergarten to college education systems — and would get a voting seat on the Board of Education.
The state Legislature has indicated it wants to tweak Newsom’s plan. The specifics likely won’t be hammered out until the June 15 state budget deadline.
That means voters must weigh the 10 candidates seeking to replace the termed-out superintendent, Tony Thurmond, without knowing exactly what the job will look like.
So, how do you vote for the unknown?
By selecting a relentless advocate for kids and high-quality education — someone with the knowledge and political cachet to convene elected officials and teachers unions and push them to make the changes necessary to improve schools.
Two candidates stand out.
Josh Newman, a former Orange County state senator who led the Senate Education Committee, described himself in an endorsement interview as a “dead-center,” “uncompromised” candidate who would “advocate energetically” to improve student outcomes, even if it meant taking heat from powerful teachers’ unions that exercise an outsized influence on state education policy.
We’re confident that Newman would follow through on this promise — he’s stood firm against political pressure before. In 2024, he opposed a bill to enshrine the rights of University of California workers in the state Constitution — prompting an influential union to spend more than $1 million in ads attacking him and likely causing him to lose reelection.
But just as a willingness to stand up to unions is important, so too is the ability to work collaboratively with them.
Richard Barrera, president of the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education and a senior policy adviser to Thurmond, is well-positioned to strike that balance.
With nearly two decades of experience governing California’s second-largest school district, Barrera has an encyclopedic knowledge of education policy and a track record and obvious passion for helping students succeed.
Barrera is endorsed by the powerful California Teachers Association, whose preferred candidate hasn’t lost a state superintendent race in decades. This certainly could be seen as a red flag; the union has often seemed more interested in helping its members than in prioritizing kids, such as when it fought legislation to require elementary-school teachers to be trained in the “science of reading,” a phonics-based method particularly effective at teaching early literacy.
But there’s no denying the positive results Barrera has helped achieve in San Diego, which suggests that his top priority is improving student outcomes, not currying union favor.
Barrera joined the school board in 2008, where he helped oversee a strengthening of graduation standards and rates, in addition to a gradual improvement in state test scores. By 2024, San Diego was the state’s top-performing large urban school district in many categories, including English language arts and math proficiency, college and career readiness and chronic absenteeism rates — with continued improvement in many areas in 2025.
Outcomes aren’t perfect, but the district has avoided the steep drops in learning loss that other schools across the state and country experienced post-pandemic. Last year, the state education department identified San Diego Unified’s “marked gains” in math and literacy as a model other school districts could learn from.
Barrera told us that a central component of San Diego’s good outcomes is building trust between teachers, administrators and families during contentious moments “like the budget process and contract negotiations.”
Barrera also helped the district reach consensus on housing. In January, his school board green-lit the most ambitious educator housing blueprint put forth by a K-12 school district. It could produce nearly 3,000 units for school staff on district-owned land, while avoiding affordability mandates so stringent that even teachers don’t qualify for the units — a pitfall that’s occurred in San Francisco and Los Angeles. As superintendent, Barrera could leverage this expertise to help districts facing school closures, including San Francisco, repurpose underutilized facilities and land.
We believe Barrera is uniquely qualified to get diverse stakeholders rowing in the same direction to improve outcomes for kids. He deserves your vote.
Other big names in the race include Anthony Rendon, a former speaker of the state Assembly who spent about 20 years running early education programs. Rendon would bring political gravitas and critical administrative experience to the role. But his campaign seems more focused on fighting the Trump administration than on improving student outcomes.
Assembly Member Al Muratsuchi, D-Rolling Hills Estates (Los Angeles County), led the Assembly Education Committee, is an adjunct professor at El Camino Community College and was president of the Torrance Unified School District Board of Education. But we’re concerned he won’t advocate for kids as aggressively as needed; in 2024, he bent to political pressure and tabled the “science of reading” bill without granting it a hearing.
May 12, 2026
OPINION STAFF
The editorial positions of The Chronicle, including election recommendations, represent the consensus of the editorial board, consisting of the publisher, the editorial page editor and staff members of the opinion pages. Its judgments are made independent of the news operation, which covers the news without consideration of our editorial positions.
© 2026 Hearst Communications, Inc.Terms of UsePrivacy NoticeCA Notice at CollectionYour CA Privacy Rights (Shine the Light)DAA Industry Opt OutYour Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads)
