Richard Barrera, backed by more than $9 million in California Teachers Association spending, has won the race for state superintendent of public instruction — and every parent who wanted a say in their children's schooling just watched the union machine buy the result.
The race wasn't close. Barrera led with roughly 57.6% of the vote to Sonja Shaw's 42.4%, a margin of over a million votes, according to the New York Post. But the margin tells you less than the money. The CTA poured unprecedented independent expenditures into electing a reliable ally to the state's top education post. Shaw said "more than $10 million was poured into this race against us and we were up against a political machine that has been in place for decades."
That machine delivered. Barrera, 59, the San Diego Unified school board president, campaigned on increasing school funding and making schools "healthy, safe communities for all of our students" — a formulation that signals solidarity with California's current gender-identity policies. Barrera supports state law allowing biological males to compete in girls' and women's sports, dismissing the issue by noting the number of transgender athletes is "exceedingly small," according to the Los Angeles Times.
Shaw, 44, a Chino Valley school board president, ran on parental rights and common sense: keep biological males out of girls' sports, stop the decades-long liberal mismanagement of California schools. "The problem is that for decades, the same people have had their hands on our education system, while our children have continued to fall behind," Shaw said in her concession. She outperformed other statewide Republican candidates in what the LA Times described as a "blue wave" election — proof the parental rights message cuts through even in deep-blue territory.
But here's the catch neither outlet put at the top: the office Barrera just won has already been gutted. Before the votes were counted, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law this summer transferring oversight of schools and management of the state Education Department to a governor-appointed commissioner starting in 2027. Governor-elect Xavier Becerra will appoint that commissioner. The elected superintendent becomes a voting member of the State Board of Education and sits on the UC regent and CSU trustee boards — a pulpit without a department.
Shaw called the overhaul an unconstitutional "power grab" and said she plans to sue, though legal experts say such a suit is unlikely to succeed, the New York Post reported. Barrera was more accommodating, pitching the weakened office as a vehicle to draft education budgets before the governor releases his spending plan each January — essentially an advocacy role for the union agenda from inside the system.
Neither candidate supported the overhaul, according to the New York Post. But one of them is already making peace with it.
The LA Times framed Barrera's victory as a mandate for "a positive vision for our public schools." The New York Post noted the office is now "largely moot." Both are true. The voters chose Barrera. The governor already chose to make that choice matter less.
Shaw says God "isn't finished" and that "parents still deserve to be heard." The open question is whether anyone in Sacramento is still listening — or whether the union machine and the governor's office have locked the doors from the inside.
