Is all of California ready for an education shakeup? Will it follow Virginia and San Francisco?

The state superintendents of public instruction the past five decades have presided over the decline of California’s K-12 education system from one of the best in the nation, to among the worst. It’s a scandal because the kids are losing out. And Silicon Valley remains the high-tech center of the world and needs smart young graduates to fill its ranks.

Like all recent superintendents, incumbent Tony Thurmond is just a tool of the teachers’ unions, the most powerful political force in the state. Running for re-election, he is the most vulnerable incumbent on the November ballot. The reason: Parents across the nation are upset about what’s going on in the schools.

In Virgina last November, Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin defeated former Gov. Terry McAuliffe after the latter arrogantly asserted, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Even more shocking, in ultra-left-wing San Francisco, in February voters recalled three school board members who kept schools closed too long during COVID, sought to rename numerous schools and tried to gut the standards at the prestigious Lowell High School.

Thurmond won in 2018 with just 50.9% of the vote. He did nothing to resist Gov. Gavin Newsom’s excessive school lockdown mandates. Among other massive Thurmond failures, a recent report by World Population Review found California suffers the lowest literacy rate of any state. How can you have a democracy if voters can’t read?

Although officially a non-partisan post, everyone who looks into it knows the party of the candidates. The unions always back a Democrat, like Thurmond. Of the six candidates opposing him in the June primary, the top candidate to watch is Lance Christensen, a Republican.

Full disclosure: When I was state Sen. John Moorlach’s press secretary, 2017-20, Lance was the chief of staff. That means I can report on his efficiency in helping Moorlach run both the Sacramento and Costa Mesa offices. That included working with the majority Democrats who still will be in charge of the Legislature next year.

Lance is an expert on the state budget, of which 40% goes to K-12 education because of Proposition 98. That will be a whopping $115 billion for the 2022-23 budget, which begins on July 1. For that money, why isn’t California No. 1 instead of No. 50?

Lance also has five children in the public schools, so he personally knows what’s going on. I first met him two decades ago when he was working for state Sen. Tom McClintock, now a U.S. congressman. Lance was the state’s top expert on pension reform.

“Thurmond has been missing in action the past two years, while the teachers’ unions and the politicians they control have been trampling on every right kids have,” Lance told me. He lamented how his children lost two years of in-school education, including socialization, due to the excessive lockdowns.

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He pointed out Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new budget proposal includes spending more than $20,000 per student, yet literacy remains among the lowest of the 50 states. “That’s $600,000 per classroom of 30 students. What could you do with that money if you were an independent school? You could take the students on numerous field trips, buy them gym memberships and serve the best food ever. You could attract the best teachers. You could take care of the special ed kids, language needs. Instead, the money is going to bureaucratic bloat.”

I’ve had the food at local public schools. Worse than Army food.

Recently, Lance has been vice president of Education Policy and Government Relations at the California Policy Center, which is working on a school choice initiative on the November ballot.

If he gets past the primary and faces Thurmond mano-a-mano in November, Lance expects a massive assault by the unions. “The teachers’ unions can come after me all they want,” he said, sounding like Gen. Patton. “I’ll just remind people I’m not protecting those who are driving the students to the bottom on every measure, including physical health during the shutdowns.”

I’ve been writing on education in California now for 35 years. More than ever, parents tell me, they’re ready for a change – a big one.

John Seiler writes at johnseiler.substack.com