Assembly Education

Now it's on. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members. It's a pleasure to be here with all of you. as today I present Assembly Bill 1665 about student mental health training for coaches. Thank you to the committee for your work on the bill, and I am happy to accept the committee amendments. Children and teenagers are facing a mental health crisis. More than 20% of children confront mental health issues, and three out of every 10 teenagers face serious psychological distress. And these numbers are increasing. At the same time, more young people than ever are participating in school sports programs. Athletics are intended to be a fun, physical, and mental outlet, but increased competition and pressure to perform at high levels can also intensify stress for young athletes. At our schools, adults in positions of authority are expected to have the training and tools to provide students with resources and guidance for mental health struggles. We already require teachers to undergo youth mental health training to receive their TMS credentials. As we equip teachers with a training to support student mental health, we should also consider other trusted adults in students lives who may not yet have the tools to do so. As trusted mentors, coaches are often the first to hear about student athlete mental health challenges. They have the unique opportunity to spot mental health crisis and point students toward appropriate resources. School coaches are required to complete training to support student athlete physical health, including education on concussions, cardiac arrest, and heart illness. Yet these safety courses do not include any instruction about how to support student athletes' mental health, even though physical and mental well-being are closely connected. AB 1665 requires school sports coaches to complete an approved mental health training course. The bill will equip coaches who see and interact closely with student athletes to recognize when a student may be struggling. And with me today to speak in support of this bill is Danielle Domenkeli, former high school

You at time Please wrap it up Okay I have one last thing Providing coaches who athletes inherently put their trust in with training to recognize warning signs communicate responsibly and support athletes in accessing help is essential

Thank you. At this time, we will take public comments and support. Please step up to the microphone, state your name, your affiliation, and your position on the bill only. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Barrows, do you mind coming back and doing it again? The mic was not on. Do it. There you go.

Thank you. At this time, we will have opposition witnesses step up. Seeing none, public comment in opposition? I see no public comment in opposition. Now to committee members for discussion. Are there any questions or comments on this bill? Ms. Pellerin? Assembly member Pellerin?

Seeing no other comments from committee members, do we have a motion? We're in a subcommittee. So we'll hold this. Hold it open. Thank you. I will be brief. When a time is appropriate, I would love an aye vote. Thank you. Thank you. We will now move on to file item number 11, Assemblymember Hoover presenting AB 2316. Assemblymember Hoover, you may proceed when ready.

Okay.

Chair and members, my name is Carson Eades. I am here on behalf of the California Charter Schools Association, and thank you again for your collaboration on the committee amendments. We're very thankful for that. We are sponsoring AB 2316 as a simple fairness measure. It ensures that charter public schools have access to the same financial hardship relief as traditional public schools that they already receive. Today, all public schools must typically provide a 50% local match in order to access state facilities bond funding, But when traditional school districts are unable to meet that requirement, they can apply for financial hardship relief to reduce that share. Charter public schools have unfortunately been excluded from this option. This disparity matters. Facilities access is one of the most significant challenges that charter public schools face, driven in part by their lack of access to public financing tools. In most cases, school districts can raise local bond funds for their 50 percent match through voter approved local bonds. And they can also raise developer fees. If they cannot do that, they have the opportunity to apply for hardship and reduce their match. Charter schools, they can't raise local bond funding. They're often excluded from local bond revenues. They can't receive developer fees, and they also cannot apply for hardship. So as a result, charter public schools must often rely on private financing in order to raise that match. And then that diverts operational dollars away from student services towards facilities funding just to be able to afford it. As a result, that means you're having less funding for your student services. Many charters, especially those who are smaller or in low-income areas, they simply just cannot afford this financing. They're locked out of the bond program altogether. AB 2316 will help to fix this inequity. It allows charter schools to apply for hardship relief when they face an undue financial burden. It authorizes the state to adjust that, match as they see fit, to a reasonable level, similar to how it does so for school districts. At its core, this is about parity, equity, and access. Charter schools serve over 700,000 students in California. They're public schools. Their students deserve equitable access to safe and modern facilities. AB 2316 will help to ensure that access. We respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate that your witnesses were exactly on time. Thank you. With that, we will take public comments in support. Name, affiliation, and position on bill only.

Are there any witnesses in opposition? Any public comment in opposition?

Good afternoon, Cassie Mancini on behalf of the California School Employees Association. Also just wanted to thank the committee staff for their work on the amendments. We had too been concerned about the lack of guidance for the regulatory authorities about what constitutes hardship. I'm grateful and look forward to seeing those in print.

Yeah, I appreciate, again, the work of the committee on this and respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Motion.

You may proceed when ready Ms Cortez Thank you Chair and members Ken Capone with my colleague Sarah Cortez on behalf of the Legislative Analyst Office We here to give you a brief overview of the evolution of education governance in the state, the major and minor players, and how governance works in some other state agencies. California had no organized public school system when it gained statehood in 1850, but the framers of our first constitution thought it was a core state responsibility and set about creating that system by setting aside land that could be sold to pay for education, setting a minimum school year, initially three months, and by creating the elected position of state superintendent. The legislature charged the superintendent initially with building schools, portioning funding, and overseeing teacher training institutes. A few years later, the legislature created the state board of education to manage other aspects of the system. The board was responsible for approving textbooks, determining required courses of study, And at the time, it mainly consisted of state and local officials, including the governor, the state superintendent, some county superintendents, and the heads of the state's teacher training programs. The balance of power between the state board and the superintendent shifted over time. Both had some significant responsibilities initially, but in the late 1880s, the counties took over almost took over all of the board's statutory responsibilities. the board became an advisory body and the superintendent was the lead governance actor for a period of time. The board eventually regained much of its authority, however, and once again those responsibilities of those two entities began to blur. The most important development happened in 1912. That was the year the voters amended the state constitution to remove all of the board's ex officio members and give the legislature more control over the state's governance system. And the legislature said, we've really had it with the ambiguity up to this point, what we're going to do is make the board consist of appointees of the governor, we'll make the board more of the head of the system and in charge of policy making, and the superintendent is going to be subordinate to the board and function as an administrator of policies. It wasn't very long before that arrangement came under scrutiny. The special legislative committee conducted the first formal governance study in 1920 and was very critical of California's system. It criticized what it called a double-headed governance structure, specifically for relying on an independently elected official like the superintendent to implement laws adopted by the legislature or policies approved by the state board. It said that would inevitably lead to conflict and inefficiency, and it recommended replacing the superintendent with an appointed commissioner. Many subsequent studies had a similar diagnosis and made similar recommendations. In 1928, the legislature tried to implement that recommendation by asking the voters to approve the elimination of the superintendent as an elected position. The voters rejected that idea, as well as three similar ballot measures over the next several decades, most recently in 1968. So the state today operates with much of the same governance structure that it established in the early 1900s. It has four core actors, the state board, an 11-member body that's appointed by the governor. The board adopts regulations and academic standards, defining what students should know and be able to do in various subjects. We have the state superintendent, whose most important role today is administering and leading the California Department of Education. The governor, policymaking entity as the architect of the state budget and the signer of legislation. Of course, the legislature, which is approving the budget and state laws. Our state constitution requires California to have an elected superintendent and a state board of education, but it says relatively little about their duties. And the courts have said that the legislature is the ultimate authority and the decider and the entity through state laws decides what each of those other entities does and how they relate to one another California Department of Education is the main administrative agency implementing programs Allocating funding and collecting data about 1500 employees work on those tasks This year that makes it midsize compared to most other state departments Most of the department's budget actually comes from the federal government and various grant allowances for for administering federal programs. The state general fund is only about a third of the department's total administrative budget. Outside the four core entities, the state has many smaller entities with governance responsibilities in some specialized areas. The most clear cut examples are the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which oversees teacher training programs. The Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team, which provides fiscal intervention and budget advice. The California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, which provides academic assistance and technical support, and the state allocation board, which distributes school facility funding. Depending on how we define governance, the state has at least a dozen entities like that and potentially as many as two dozen working on these very specific elements of governance and direction for school districts. One reason the state's created the California Department of Education was to consolidate a lot of the independent agencies that existed at that time into one central administrative agency. But over the past several decades, The states tended to focus more on expanding the number of independent agencies. And there have been various reasons for that. Sometimes those are priority driven, where the legislature feels like some function needs a higher profile, or maybe the Department of Education wasn't addressing it, giving as much attention as they thought it deserved. Sometimes it was administrative, maybe a sense that a smaller agency could be more nimble. Sometimes it was fiscal. The legislature might have wanted to use Proposition 98 funding for something, and they use that funding for the California Department of Education. Other cases it might have been more about who the superintendent and the governor were at

Thank you. Ms. Cortez, do you have anything to add at this time?

I am the Senior Policy Director at Education Commission of the States, or ECS. And for those of you who don't know, ECS is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tries to help state policymakers make better education policy through research and convening and counsel that we provide. And so I'm actually here today not to speak in favor or in opposition to this particular proposal, but to help situate it in the context of what's happening in other states and also to situate it in the historical context of other states that have changed their governance structures over time. You know, we at ECS have done at least 40 years of research on states' K-12 governance structures, so that gives us some insight into this. So first, let's look at sort of that current landscape that I mentioned. And I think this is going to be very complementary for what you just heard from the LAO. California's current governance model, which is, as you know, an elected superintendent of schools and an appointed board, is not common in this country. But it's not unheard of either. And we know of eight other states in the country that have this particular model. Now, the proposed changes would actually be unique in the country, but that in itself is not remarkable because there are many states that are unicorns, right? Like a lot of states have their own unique structures that are theirs and their own structures only. So that doesn't necessarily mean anything. But there are actually several aspects of the proposed governance structure that have echoes in other states. I'm going to just give you some of those examples right now. So particularly there are other states that have a cabinet level secretary and a superintendent of schools serving at the same time. One, for example, that's changed rather recently to this model, and I'll say more about it in a minute, is Ohio, whose governance structure, at least in this regard, is probably closest to the proposal that we see here in California, at least that I've seen. And so Ohio actually introduced a governor-appointed director of education and workforce, the new state education agency, and reduced the responsibilities of the existing board-appointed superintendent who is in the state constitution, sort of after the pattern a little bit of the proposal that we're hearing about in California right now. Now, Virginia also has a sort of dual structure. The governor in Virginia appoints both a cabinet-level secretary who has sort of policy oversight and a superintendent of schools who runs the state education agency, so the day-to-day operations. In Massachusetts, similarly, the governor appoints a cabinet-level secretary who coordinates across early education, K-12, and post-secondary education. And then the governor-appointed board selects the commissioner, who then has sort of, again, administrative oversight over the day-to-day operations of the SEA. There's also a handful of states that we've been able to identify where the chief state school officer has administrative oversight over both the state education agency and the state board of education. For example, the Illinois State Board of Education is that state's state education agency. And the state superintendent of education in Illinois, who is a non-voting member of the board, also has sort of staff oversight of the state board. Oregon appears to have sort of a similar structure in which the director of the Oregon Department of Education, who was appointed by the governor, answers to the governor-appointed board while overseeing that board's daily operations. So now I'm going to talk a little bit about the change that you're proposing in light of sort of historical changes that have happened broadly in governance structures at the state level. And ECS is pretty well positioned to do this because we have about 40-plus years of research on this particular issue. I think it's fair to say that state governance structures broadly in this country have been fairly stable in recent years. But we went back to the very first report we could dredge up that we had actually digitized, which was from 1983. And we noted that 14 states have made substantial changes to their governance structures between then and now. Only two of those states happened in the last decade, however. And in really all of those 14 states, the tendency was to move more influence into the hands of the governor in all of those cases. So there are states that we found that had a structure like California's back in the 80s. So you have an appointed board and an elected chief state school officer, which then subsequently moved to different governance structures. So, for example, in the 1990s, Kentucky moved from an elected superintendent to a commissioner appointed by a board that is in turn appointed by the governor. In Oregon, which I know I mentioned earlier, they substantially overhauled their governance structure. I think it was around 2012, removing the role of the elected chief state school officer entirely and designating the governor the superintendent of education. And the governor, in turn, then appoints a director of the state education agency who oversees its day-to-day operations. More recently, Indiana abolished the position of elected chief state school officer and established a governor-appointed secretary of education. And now the governor also appoints most of the state board. So those are some more recent examples of what's happened in Indiana. But in the past decade, in addition to Indiana, the only other state that has made a change is one I already mentioned, and that's Ohio. Ohio, through the 2023 budget bill, actually established the Department of Education and Workforce as the state education agency. There was a kind of a conglomeration of various kinds of agency efforts here. And the governor now appoints a director of that agency who has administrative oversight of the agency. But as I mentioned before, the board-appointed superintendent remains. That person used to administer the agency, but now has a smaller portfolio focused largely on things like teacher licensure. Now, there was also a 2025 budget bill in Ohio that restructured the state board as well by reducing its size, eliminating the elected members entirely, and ensuring that all members of the state board are appointed by the governor. So it's fair to say that the model in Ohio represents a stronger shift to the governor, certainly, than the proposal in California does. So, you know, basically, to sum up, state governance is complex. It is very unique in a lot of different states. But I think having this sort of more historical perspective that we have at ECS, you can see that the tendency has been for influence on education to move more into the hands of governors. Thank you very much. Happy to answer questions when it's appropriate.

Thank you all for your introductory testimonies in panel one today. I have a couple questions I'm going to ask to kick off our questions for panel one. The first one is for the LAO. The LAO provided a briefing at a similar legislative informational hearing in 2018. How has the LAO's thinking evolved since then? I wasn't here in 2018.

Thank you for that insight. Related to the re-envisioning of the Office of State Superintendent, please, if you don't mind, describe your recommendations, your specific recommendations. I know it was in the LAO report, but it's good for us to get a high-level description now.

Thank you for that. And then finally, moving on to Mr. Zeiger. Zeiger or Zeiger? Zeiger. Your introductory testimony, you said that, or you touched on that it has to be more than just a change at the top, that the change in itself isn't going to be sufficient. So in your experience, what would you say are contributing factors to a high-functioning relationship between an SPI and a CDE?

Thank you for that insight. It's certainly something that we are prepared as a legislature to consider and take action on. We appreciate that. Going back to Mr. Von Zastrow, you described a pantheon of different solutions that various states have come up with. You said many are unicorns. Are any of them or do any patterns seem to pop out as correlating better with improved student outcomes?

Yeah, that is interesting. Of course, the complexities are far and wide. We have so much more layered system in our public education system with a variety of programs and funding structures. And it's just a lot more complex in California, including our student population being very diverse and complex as well. Back to the LAO for my final question before turning it over to my colleagues. I wanted to make sure we captured something that was specifically stated in your report. Your recommendation on page 11 specifically to require the legislature to have an approval process for the commissioner's appointment. Can you describe a little bit about that recommendation?

Thank you for expanding upon that. I'll now turn it over to the committee. Does anyone want to start with questions?

Yes, so as part of our recommendation, we do recommend more details we provided on the fiscal implementation. So we are recommending that more details be provided. Given the scope of the proposal, we think that this could be done in a cost-neutral way. But getting those details would allow the legislature to oversee some of the more practical details of how this would be implemented.

So we don't have those details of the governor's budget proposal. That would be best directed to the administration. We are recommending that more details be provided through a fiscal plan. Okay.

I think you can get on with the analyst's office. I think for speaking to the proposal, I think the next panel can give and speak to the governor's proposal. Our recommendation is to focus that position on being a public representative, an evaluator, an advisor. I think what we've heard from the administration is that they are thinking of this proposal as doing some of those things, maybe more focusing more on a coordinator across different segments of education. But, again, I think some of the next speakers will be able to speak more to the governor's vision for the position.

Assemblymember Hoover? Thank you. Thank you all for being here today. I really appreciate the deep dive into this. I think very important and impactful proposal, but also one with a lot of, I would say, where the devil is in the details. And, you know, from reading the LEO's report, that's obviously very clear because even your breakdown of all the different studies that have been done on this topic have come to various conclusions on the best path forward. I think the one thing I wanted to focus in on, I do appreciate the chair bringing up. What did you bring up? No, I don't even remember. The confirmation. I think that's really important and certainly maybe something we could discuss as a committee. But certainly would love to see a little bit more legislative oversight from the governor's proposal. But in terms of sort of the piece that I wanted to focus on you make a note in multiple places in your report where you know you mentioned that the governor essentially this allows more opportunities for policymakers and the public to hold the governor accountable for educational outcomes You also have a section that talks about how the current structure really does struggle to delineate lines of accountability and that no one entity can be currently held accountable for educational quality and results. I was wondering if, and anyone can comment on this, honestly, if any of you have thoughts on the accountability piece specifically, but curious from the LAO's perspective, how the governor's proposal could potentially help us even hold a future governor, assuming this governor will be gone once this proposal goes into effect, more accountable for educational results.

So I didn't know if you had any comments on that.

Thank you. I'm going to add it backwards. Right. No, I appreciate that. I think not. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think it also highlights an important point that, you know, it does the sort of education agenda becomes very dependent on who the governor is at the time. And so that could be a governor who is very passionate about educational outcomes. It could be one that doesn't prioritize education, and the legislature would then need to play a larger role. So I appreciate the thoughts, and that's all for now on this panel. Certainly we wouldn't want to change without a difference, and even more certain we don't want a change that's going to cause harm.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for holding this very important opportunity for us to be able to dive into this pretty significant shift. I have a couple of questions. The first is I kind of just want to take a step back from what we've all just been talking about And have you all just to define for me what you think the advantage of having a separation of powers is within the education context as it relates to the executive branch administration, the legislature, and the judiciary. And maybe you can just focus on the – it doesn't seem like judiciary is too implicated, but perhaps there is something to talk about. as it relates to policymaking?

I appreciate that. But I also think that we have added in our own complexity in the past hundred years when we essentially decided to make a portion of the executive branch a policymaking body. And I think that we've kind of have since struggled with that because it's very clear kind of in the health world that there's rulemaking that happens in different agencies. but there's not legislative kind of policymaking that is as, you know, so easily kind of just passed through. And I think that that is one of the major challenges that we have. I wanted to kind of just move to some of the operational challenges that are highlighted in the LAO's report or kind of pointed to. One is around the role of the CDE right now as it relates to basically running, as you mentioned, several different schools and evaluation arms Where would that work go Thank you We envision that CDE would do a lot of

Okay. And as it relates to the county offices of education, so this is a query I have. So right now, county offices of education basically report into the CDE, and CDE is essentially treated through SPI as an independent body. In the proposal that we are looking at right now, if functionally the CDE's role and that oversight role would go shift from being kind of somewhat independent to being very squarely under the scope of the administration wholly. So I don't know if you all know this, but sometimes the state and counties don't necessarily agree. And there's a lot of tension between the work of the county offices and the scope of what they are trying to achieve and the state. And quite frankly, I think that it is a very healthy tension in some regards because it allows for there to be a sensibility of kind of local control, of allowing there to be some ability for us to have oversight and accountability, but to have there be a different kind of separation of powers, so to speak. In this proposal, with all of that function essentially coming under the role and the direct scope of the governor's administration, how are we preserving the relationship of, or the role, I should say, of the county offices of education?

this issue. Right. On this, I would say that perhaps there has been the correct identification of a serious concern around accountability and kind of the oversight authority and the lack of clarity that has been provided to county offices of education in terms of knowing who to basically seek both counsel from and an expectation on oversight. I don't know that that necessarily translates for me into the need to merge the function of the CDE into the direct oversight of the administration. I have always conceived of a part of the SPI's role to be essentially kind of like the chief of the county's offices of education. There's a significant amount of interaction that happens, I know, in Alameda County between the SPI and the County Office of Education. And that's a very critical role. And to have that kind of be sidelined, if you will, and not attended to, is of some concern for me. So I want us to make sure that we're kind of diving a little bit more deeply into both understanding the nature of the concern, which is legitimate from the county offices of education, but perhaps not providing a solution that doesn't really address the need to keep those functions separate. I wanted to move on, and I will cede after this, although I have other questions, but for the sake of time, around the articulation of the superintendent of public instruction, either in recommendations from the LAO or in the proposal that are somewhat problematic for me. I will divulge straight off of the bat. The re-envisioning of the SPI as the the public representative, the advisor, and the independent evaluator. Now a lot of that language having been in the public safety world for a while in the legislature as chair of the budget sub especially in terms of oversight sounds a lot like the role of the inspector general as it was constructed So we have the CDCR, we created an inspector general that sometimes has teeth and enforceability function, sometimes does not, depending on both the individual who sits in that position, as well as the authority that the legislature gives to that individual and sits kind of like outside of the system. Now, there is so much wrong in CDCR and so much that needs to really fall under the oversight authority of the inspector general that I would hate to replicate, and knowing that, I would hate to replicate that kind of the nature of that function in the world of education and what we intend to do in education, because it sounds like in all that's been presented so far that the role as it's being conceived, and maybe we just haven't had enough time to fully flesh out what the proposal is around that would kind of be just ranging from an ambassador to an evaluator to somebody who is able to kind of interact with and be an ombudsman for the state and the state's educational system, but also largely just kind of sits outside of our educational system. So So I think that is an incredible kind of undervaluing of the potential power of the superintendent of public instruction. And I don't think that we need another layer of kind of quasi-bureaucracy, if you will, sitting somewhere as an appendage. I think appendage is the word I want, yeah, as an appendage to be able to kind of inform our education policy and our education, the execution of and implementation of our operations within the education arm. If we have somebody who is an elected official, sits on a statewide ballot, voted by the people to be able to serve and support our educational opportunities, and regular Jane isn't sitting in hearing rooms every single day, they are going to have an expectation around the function and the performance of that individual. And I think if we, on the one hand, have a stated role in an elected position that has presumably these powers and authority, but have essentially gutted the relevance of that individual, we would be doing a disservice to the voting public. and to every child and family who seeks or who believes that the SPI is somebody who has an ability to make change. So for me, there's a disconnect there. And I would just encourage us as we're looking through these proposals, if we are really headed down this pathway, that we give a little bit more attention to the function of the SPI and not have it be something that is sitting outside of this system And I will stop there with my comments I do have a couple of other questions but I wanna make sure that others have the ability to weigh in

Thank you very much to the panel. And thank you to the chair of the committee for allowing us to have this conversation. And I must also recognize and thank the Speaker of the Assembly for encouraging us to have this conversation. You all know this is a proposal that was put forward in a budget. And I think we often hear from a lot of colleagues in the legislature that there is sometimes no opportunity for us to provide input in policymaking in the budget. And this is a clear example of us doing something differently. And so I really value everybody's comments here today, and I appreciate them. I'm going to share some thoughts because one, didn't make opening comments, but hope to only make comments now. That really is not a soapbox, but really the foundation of the questions that I have throughout the different panels that we have before us today. I hope it gives context to the questions. I think I would start off with the fact, Mr. Zeiger, you can attest to the fact that you and I did not know each other for more than about an hour ago when this got started. Is that correct? Okay. I have had conversations with with various stakeholders, including this morning, some stakeholders that I know are here, and others who will be presenting on the panel. And I have raised the issue of why. Why are we doing this? And there are some very good arguments, I think, from the administration as to why we should do this from an administrative process, from trying to align policy goals, objectives, and accountability within education itself in the department. And I think that we should acknowledge that that is, I believe, but we'll let the administration speak for themselves, the spirit of this, and I think there's value, tremendous value to that. However, we can't just act on that alone. When I say why, I think about what are the outcomes we want to achieve with this. In my opinion, this is such an important conversation and a change that if we do not talk about what else we want to accomplish with this change, what are the objectives of this, then we will have missed an opportunity. And shame on us if we do not have that conversation today and as this process moves forward. And so I'm looking forward to the questions in the exchange to help us identify that not just why should we rearrange boxes on an organizational chart, but why are we doing it and with what in mind? and everything we do in this committee, at least when I wear the hat of committee member of the education committee in the assembly is it should be student-centered and outcomes focused. And if that not why we doing this then we need to start to rethink why we doing what we doing whether it this proposal or any other And so I think there is some room to have conversation about how we going to accomplish that And that's what my questions are, and that will be it for my soapbox. I will now get into the actual questions. I want to start with the colleagues have been talking about something really important, which is they're alluding to this, maybe haven't said it, but we are essentially creating a different system. I wasn't going to say a new system, but a different system. And this opportunity for all of us, this is our chance to say what we think, you know, would make this a better system. And so let's ask those questions. My first question would be to the LAO is on the role of the superintendent if this were to be adopted. One, I have to acknowledge the analysis and the document that you've produced dated March 2026, which is the one, the most recent one on re-envisioning education governance is very, very good. I have to say that because the question is going to sound like I'm questioning or I'm perhaps not acknowledging that. It's very good. But I do think there is a little bit of lack of clarity and might I even say vagueness to your suggestions of what the role of the superintendent could be. And I'd like to ask you, and I know we're going to have – my questions are going to be consistent, by the way, across the panel, so the next two can get ready. The most recent, the PACE report, talked about some specifics of what the role could be. The administration's proposal does not include that. Your language kind of sort of, to me, sounds like the PACE proposal, but not really. I'd like to give you an opportunity to talk about why perhaps you did not provide more specifics on what the roles could be. You identify very clearly that there needs to be a defined role, clearly defined role, but not what that should be. And I think that's where I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Thank you. And again, I think there's certainly value in that, but the PACE report talks very specifically about conducting and coordinating rigorous formative evaluations to inform policy, program improvement. Those are all, again, the language sounds similar. I just wasn't sure if that's where you were headed as well.

I think we're building a new system or reimagining a system. It should be the end goal. Again, I go back to where I started. The end goal in mind, which is it should be about student outcomes. And if we're not creating that as part of this change, then we're missing the opportunity to accomplish that. But we can have more chat about that. I want to give the other two individuals who are before us, you've heard this exchange about what this role could be. I don't think you said some generalities as well. As you heard this conversation, are there any other thoughts that have come to mind in terms of what the role, specific role, statutory role of a superintendent, if we were to make a change like this, that you've either seen in other states that you've analyzed, sir, or that you know about in the work that you've done in the past?

To be really honest with you, I think that you've got this, you've created this and a set of something for this person to do because you couldn't figure out how to get rid of them. I mean, the truth of the matter is you've taken all the responsibility and moved it somewhere else. There is no role. At best, you've created another lieutenant governor. But they don't even have to pick up the phone and find out if somebody is still alive. I mean, it's there is no function for them. Or you've created a statewide elected gadfly. Right About the system Is that a role that you need to create I so I I mean you can invent these roles but the truth is you taken all the responsibility away

So the truth is I can't figure it out. It's just – you can't get rid of them, so you've got to do something with them. Okay. Thank you. Let me ask just one other question so we can move on, which was also a – nobody's talked about this, and I'm definitely curious from other states' perspectives, and the LAO wasn't in your analysis here. Again, taking from the PACE report and some of the recommendations, appointing a CDE director with experience and expertise, someone who's actually run schools and has that experience. What – maybe I'll start with the LAO and then I'll work my way this way at the panel here. Was that analyzed, looked at, comparison to other states? I'd like to know where we would stand.

OK. Any experience that you can share?

Thank you all for answering those questions. Like I said earlier, the next panels, they will be very common questions throughout my opportunity. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to just say we do have two other panels where we'll be able to integrate the actual proposal. So I want to make sure we keep sufficient time to get into that.

You're good? All right.

Thank you for having me. We do have a handout that you should have in your folder that we may refer to. I probably won't click through the slides as we go. I just want to share my comments. But feel free, I'll refer to a couple of them as we proceed. So good afternoon. My name is Brooks Allen. I serve as the Executive Director of the State Board of Education and as the Education Policy Advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom. Thank you, Chair Patel, members, for the opportunity to appear here today to discuss his historical proposal. For this hearing, I will focus my comments on Governor Newsom's proposal to strengthen California's education and governance system. Some of this ground has been covered a bit in the first panel, so I will try to move with some speed, but not at the expense of some detail. First and foremost, and this really goes to Assemblymember Alvarez's comments, this proposal is about accountability for delivering results for our children. It is about where California's state governance structure is aligned to support schools well, implement policy coherently, and allow the state to be held accountable for those results.

Oh thank you Good afternoon Dr Patel Vice Chair Hoover and members of the Assembly Education Committee

Thank you Madam Chair and to the members of the committee, Tony Thurman, State Superintendent

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all in panel two for your testimony today.

Yep. You'll have to work with CSBA, who's our lead sponsor, but certainly would be open to those conversations.

I appreciate the question. I think probably taking a step back when we think about what would shift and what would change. I think as we've heard the discussion across both panels today, I think one common theme has been an actual policymaking authority. Borrow the words of Superintendent Thurmond. Folks see that the governor and legislature have ultimate budget authority, legislative authority, right? Pass bills, governor signs bills, suppose the budget, you send a budget, sends it over. All of that does not change. Nothing about this proposal shifts any of that. Any of the responsibilities that the SB has and the CD have are really dictated by the legislature and then ultimately the governor in terms of signing those pieces. That does not shift. The challenge that can come up, and I take some points made earlier, you can work together really well. The structure's not set up for that. We have all worked closely to try to make sure that's not the case. You don't have a challenge currently, as they did in the early 90s, where you have a fight over appointments, where it has to literally get litigated in the courts to figure out what's going to happen. You don't have a situation where you have a state board who is having to enact really micromanagement policies about every aspect of an operation of a management department because it's under a separately elected constitutional for day-to-day management, but not for policy. We don have those conflicts That part of the reason why this is actually a pretty good time to do it because you have folks who have been working well together You have Superintendent Thurman and Governor Newsom really agreeing on if he had someone he wants to appoint Governor going to appoint him That's been working out. That does not have to be the case. The structure is not set up for that to be the case. And that is why we see, if we look back over the past hundred years, this continues to come up as a structural problem. We can do a workaround, that's what we do currently, or we can really set it up to have effective success. To your last point, and I want to make sure I hit each of them There is this question of, and I've heard this from a number of members When we've had a chance to go around and have some visits That there is a concern that there would be less access to the expertise That the folks in the California Department of Education have When it comes time to either discuss your bills, talk about implementation And those types of things Obviously, I can't speak to the commitments to any future governor Certainly you know that from this governor, we show up to everything for his staff But I'm here. But if there's anything else for future governors, clearly there is some part of that that will be part of that struggle. I've actually had a chance to talk to some of my colleagues who are agency secretaries and said, hey, I've been hearing this concern as we've been walking around talking about this. Is this a thing that happens? They said, yeah, occasionally it is, right? There is sometimes there has been this tension about, like, do we get full access? So I fully appreciate – well, I more fully appreciate now, having had those conversations, that that is sometimes an active tension and an area of concern. There's no reason under our current structure, though, I would argue, that there's any reason we don't have the same uncertainty about who comes into office. Should nothing come of this proposal after today, nothing moves forward, doesn't move forward in the budget, bill doesn't move forward, status quo, the same thing that folks have found to be problematic and broken for over 100 years, so we look forward to future reports that talk about it. But that's where we are. Do you have the guarantee that you have greater access to staff, the expertise of the folks at the California Department of Education two years from now? That will be dependent both upon who is elected as the Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction at that time, just in the same way that it is who is elected governor. There's uncertainty in both places. And so that's why we've also talked about this being a really critical point of transition for the legislature to be able to enact these changes to the comments made before with a forward-looking role of how we shape this. Because during this uncertainty, the legislature and the board, because of those staggered terms, are really our only points of stability. We have uncertainty in terms of what the executive branch will look like. We have uncertainty about what the next Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction will look like, depending who fills that role. So I grant you that I think that that's a valid concern. I realize it's been an experience that some have had, but I think that that uncertainty exists either direction.

Those uncertainties certainly are in existence, and that is always a possibility as well. We do observe a difference in interactions with elected offices versus the governor's office, and we just want to make sure that we continue to receive the same level of transparent, open communication as we form our policies. We need that, that research, support, data. It's all very helpful. When it comes to specifically around the point of the SPI's role not being clearly defined in your position, that is very troubling to me. We heard the comments from Assemblymember Bonta that this essentially creates a vestigial organ or a vestigial appendage. Appendage, yeah. Very concerned around that, as well as concerned around to extend the human body metaphor, preparing for surgery but not really having a plan for the surgery or for recovery. It a big concern that we not thinking about that role and the power that that role has Without power it hard to have influence no matter how many reports you want to write and present If you don't have that power, you don't have influence. So the LAO had some recommendations to include that described further identifying the SPI's duties, such as representing the interests of the public, reporting on the state of education, and evaluating laws and programs. Can you please share your thoughts as to whether and how these recommendations could align with the governor's proposal, especially considering you're not adding any new staff or new budget to that role? Yeah.

Yes. I think in my role here today, I just want to be clear. I think this is understood, but just have to stay for the record. Obviously, I can't commit to anything that folks I report to make commitments to. But to that extent, I can say, yes, I think that we had the opportunity to obviously read the report. Assemblymember Alvarez noted a very well put together report. I think the ideas that were raised were all ones that we think are good points, worthy of careful consideration. I don't think there was anything that was raised there that we would view as being inconsistent with the general direction of where the governor's proposal goes. I do think that with respect to this idea, I'm not going to risk of really damaging that metaphor, so I'm not going to go into it. I will say I think I want to there's been reference to it being potentially just like two committees. I don't think that the governing board of the California Community Colleges is just a committee to have a vote on. I think that's meaningful. We think that's meaningful. We think that a vote on the State Board of Education, not just because I've staffed it a couple of times, but because it is the policymaking body for the department and for our California public schools that to date has only had gubernatorial appointees, that changing that history to actually provide an office that has been referenced as not really having the policy authority, but only administrative authority, is meaningful. It is one of 11, granted, as one on some of these bodies where it's one of many. Just like every individual legislator is not a body and a two-year selves, you guys vote as a joint committee, but having that vote is critical and it's important. It means you're making policy. If you don't have that role, and the current Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction doesn't on the State Board of Education, it is an administrative role to implement those policies passed by the legislature or subsequently by the State Board of Education under a charge given by the legislature. This would change that fundamentally, giving more voting power. It would also unify in a way that really we haven't seen across higher ed. Right now, the Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction has the ability to vote on the UC Regents as a CSU trustee. By adding the California Community Colleges, you have an office holder who would be able to actually have a voting role and be able to bring a charge to all three entities across all of higher ed, which we know, even outside of—other folks know way more about higher ed than I do. I really work in the K-12 level. Dr. Dunley-Hamond, who the superintendent referenced earlier, certainly does. It would be really critical, especially when given the time and capacity, we're no longer having to worry about the management of a large bureaucracy with over 2,000 folks to really play an effective role about championing policies across all three of those governing entities for higher ed. In addition, also having on the K-12 side an ability to have a voting role. We know it's meaningful. It means you get to pull things off consent. It means you get to be in close session. It means even if you aren't in the majority on vote, you really get to make a difference. That meaningful And we would think and this is part of the reason why I laid this out on the slide but we couldn even capture all the bodies that the Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction gets added to Because the legislature often when wanting to say hey we would like there to be a voice for K on an entity kind of writes in the Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction puts it in there And yet there's no way, there's no human way that any one of our superintendents can really serve in all of those roles simultaneously in addition to all of the other duties they have and be an effective policy champion across all those on behalf of the voters. There's just no way. You have to send deputies, you have to send other folks. It's just an inhuman task to say to be spread across. So this is really saying, look, the voters elect the Office of State Superintendents of Public Instruction to be our champion in education. Let them actually serve in those roles, be there, present in those meetings, vote, have a meaningful voice in all of those various meetings, and then be able to actually pull those folks together. We think that that actually is a really meaningful role and isn't just kind of something that would be left on the operating room table.

I appreciate that. Had to bring it home.

Yeah. I mean, I said earlier, and I think, you know, the case was referenced earlier, and I'll go back to it because I do think that it governs so much of what the legislature has done with respect to educational structures, where, frankly, what we live is that decision by the Court of Appeals in the Honig case. And I return to it because if you read it, it repeatedly makes the point that you all have the power. You have plenary power that you can add and subtract, as the legislature has done repeatedly throughout California's history, creating the entities, right? Taking them down, creating new entities. It was referenced earlier, new bodies that you created. You all have the authority to do all of that. The most meaningful tasks that the State Board of Education and the State Department of Education take on are charges that really come from the legislature. If those are the community schools grants, Superintendent Thurman talked about as one of these wonderful shared priorities, that came from the legislature, right, with the governor. If it talks about everything that they do, if you talk about curriculum, they send things over, frankly, sometimes saying, hey, we don't necessarily want to get into the details to figure out those out. It's thorny issues. Let's let the State Board of Education and CDE figure that out together, right? That gets sent over. Those are all things that are done with your delegation of authority, not without it. So to the extent that there are very limited exceptions to that, perhaps you could say like the state board has waiver power, right? So there is an ability for local educational agencies to come up to the state board to ask for a waiver of existing code. That arguably is an exception. You all get to dictate the scope of that authority. You pass laws every year that say whether something is subject to a waiver or not. There are things when LCFF that say, no, nothing with respect to LCFF can be waived. That was done by the legislature. So ultimately, at the end of the day, I'd say, what's there for you? You guys have the power to dictate the terms of the arrangement, have historically over time, and can do so again.

It's real belief. I just think that there's actually more to lose from the standpoint of the legislature. when we come before this committee on any question that the legislative committees are trying to answer, we come having gotten information from school districts about where they need help. And, you know, Assemblymember Bonta talked about it is true. It is complicated to have county officers of education. But we use the county officers of education who can talk to 20 or 30 districts in their county, and we communicate with many districts, large and small. The legislature would lose that ability to hear what 1,000-plus districts are saying they need help with. And with Luz, the superintendent has the ability to convene ad hoc structures that ultimately inform the legislative committees. This happened during the pandemic. We found out immediately that there were a million students who didn't have a computer or access to the Internet, period. End of story. And we were able to bring in Internet service providers to say, hey, you've got to give Internet to everyone for $15 or free, especially for our low-income families. From that grew a legislative proposal that ultimately secured $6 billion for broadband across the state. And so those two votes that the SBI would gain on those two committees, that is not going to cement this sort of cohesion of all the different systems of education. They're just two votes. And think of all the things that's going to be lost in exchange to get those two votes. Thank you.

Thank you for the question. I would say that the first recommendation that we made that we thought was necessary but not sufficient was picked up in the governor's proposal, which is to align the CDE with the state board to reduce that gap between policy and implementation. And so I would say that that is the first step that would allow for stronger implementation of the policies. And I think that would circle back to your first question, Dr. Patel, about what's in it for the legislature. I think the legislature has really done a fantastic job. Like I said, the policies passed are student-centered, research-informed, equity-focused. But once the policies are written, once the press conferences are held, it's a very I would love for those policies to make more impact on students so that we could see that impact in the classroom on student learning. So I do think that the next phase after should this governance reform happen would be a focus on stronger support for implementation and improvement. And then secondarily, I think something that's lost in our current structure is this ability for an outside entity to honestly evaluate how our systems are operating And I think as was brought up before I think by the LAO we really have a terrific opportunity with an external independent constitutional officer who could provide that sort of perspective and that evaluation capacity so that we're not relying again on the implementers

To start with the latter part of your question, a commissioner appointed by the governor won't have the ability to initiate initiatives that may not necessarily be priorities for the governor. And, you know, I'll give an example of two that have come in this way. In this very committee, it was impossible for a bill that would have expanded dyslexia screening to even get a hearing. And it's not that the governor wasn't interested in it, but the governor didn't weigh in on the subject. And when I wrote a letter in support of the bill, the governor immediately put dyslexia screening fully funded into the budget. Now, the person who was appointed by the governor isn't going to write a letter to the committee supporting a bill that has some controversy on both sides if their boss, the governor, isn't weighing in on that subject. And so I can give you countless examples of where something got initiated. It doesn't mean that the governor didn't care about it. I sponsored a bill to make personal finance a graduation requirement. That was not initially articulated by the governor, but the governor did eventually come on board and sign on to it. And he values it, and he speaks about it often. And so you lose the ability of an independent individual to offer initiatives that maybe no one else offers. And here's the final example I'll give you. Coming out of the pandemic, we found that there weren't enough substitute teachers, but there were retired teachers who wanted to substitute. And they couldn't substitute because of the restrictions on being a retiree. And I sponsored legislation to change the rules around the length of time that a retiree can come back without being penalized. They shouldn't lose their pension for being able to teach. No one wanted that bill to be done. No one. Everyone said, don't do this bill. And if there wasn't an independently elected state superintendent, would anyone have brought that forward? Today, that bill passed. And it gives school districts the ability to hire substitute teachers who want to spend more time helping us until we can find more substitutes to fill those vacant roles.

Thanks for asking What I meant to say is that the appointed person would not be in a position to author or sponsor or initiate an idea that their boss didn agree with If the governor doesn initiate it or support it then that person would never be able to bring that forward The last thing I'd say about the changes to this state superintendent as proposed, the current state superintendent office sits on 27 commissions and boards. Sometimes that's someone who sits in and fills in for me and then appoints 28 others. Again, all that loss in exchange for being able to vote on two additional committees, being one of 11 or one of 20, is not the same as driving the policy in higher education. The governor has the most influence over what happens in higher education by virtue of what the governor proposes in the budget and the manner in which the governor works closely with the legislature. The governor and the legislature where this happens to suggest that somehow serving on these additional commissions would be shaping and aligning K-12 through higher education is really not a complete telling of the facts.

Thank you. And thank you, Chair, for putting together this incredible panel and for your allowance of my feedback. I'm looking at this here. At this point, I'm kind of reduced to pictures. It's been a heck of a couple of months. This to me looks like a Kandinsky painting. And the problem when I look at Kandinsky paintings, I spent all my time in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, was when you look at a painting from a different way, it actually leads to some different potential observations. It strikes me that the 100 years of contemplation about this, the six reports that have been written about the alignment of our governance system, has literally always thought of how we should structure our governance from the perspective of the top of the system. At the very, very bottom of this reference in the PACE report is students and families. So this is a question that Assemblymember Alvarez asked. The superintendent alluded to it as well. If we were to have approached our design of a governance system, you know, whole cloth anew, from the perspective of what's the best for student and family in their classroom or in their schools, would we have come up with this particular set of recommendations or proposals? That's a rhetorical question because I think the answer is no, is the honest truth of it. So I'm struggling with that because I want to make sure that we are student-centered and family-centered in the work that we do. I have a mantra of being kids first at this moment in time, as I always have. And I'm struggling with the fact that we've essentially put forward a recommendation and created findings that aren't focused in that way. And I just want to take as an example in the Pace report or also in the letter or commentary around some of the things that we are attributing to the friction points and the failure to implement some policy ideas as being wholly responsible for not being fully executed around the governance system So we talked about universal TK the ELOP programs, the English Learner Roadmap, we'll add CTE to that. All of those things are initiatives and things that this legislature believed in, used its plenary power to be able to move forward with as things that were very important to us, often in partnership with the administration. And we are only talking about two entities in your 20-plus entity system that we're saying are a part of the problem for governance here. So I'm once struggling with this idea of why in the world are we not being user-centered and human-centered in our design of our governance system if that's what we're proposing to do? And two, why are we only focusing on the governor's administration and the CDE and the SPI? If you just take universal transitional kindergarten as an example, and this is where I hope that you all can kind of give us a live example to work on. What other parts of our governance system, aside from CDE and the governors, the administration, the State Board of Education, weren't working to make sure that we had powerful implementation around universal transitional kindergarten?

I appreciate that you are answering something, but I don't think you're being responsive to the question that I asked. And for the sake of this committee's time, again, let's just take the example of transitional kindergarten. So universal transitional kindergarten relies on agencies, not just CDE, but also CDSS and facilities and CTC and curriculum and facilities, all these things that needed to be coherent in order to implement well. And so as the policy rolled out, districts were expected to implement the change prior to guidance being rolled out to them. So the state failed to provide timely guidance to districts as they were expected to add a new grade for children younger than they had ever served before. So it was about kind of the timing and the rollout of the guidance that largely left local leaders responsible for doing something really challenging with existing space and offering services that they had very minimal guidance To do Madam Chair through the chair

If I may, Chair, I want to see if I can try to address an interrelated piece of that question I heard, which is sort of like why these two entities, because with the Kodinsky, like it's clearly more than just the role of the SPI and the state board. Like clearly that's perhaps in the view of the governor's proposal necessary, but not sufficient. And there are all these other entities. It is a very fragmented system. Right. That is not as a member, you've talked about all the ways that that is both true at a state level and a sub state level. Right. In terms of the way we look at that. So I would just say from. the administration's perspective with respect to this piece, there is nothing being proposed that suggests that this is the entirety of the issue and this takes care of it. We'd see it as a necessary but not sufficient first move for other things that would need to happen. But I think it's necessary and it's critical to a point that I attempted to make in the affirmative presentation, which is that the timing for these, though, is critical because it's a time window that's rare and small, because you really are talking about wanting to do this at a time where you're not interfering with the roles and responsibilities of an elected governor or of a state superintendent of public instruction. That's why typically these questions really only arise at points of transition. A number of these other things that we could be talking about, some other entities that you named and others, those are things that aren't necessarily dictated by electoral cycles in terms of changes that could be made. And so that was one reason why the focus here with respect to this moment in time is here, but it's not to suggest that that would be the entirety of the types of things that we've needed to do to strengthen both program supports and

So I'll do my best to unpack it and let me know. I think one piece I just want to underscore is that for all the point you asked about in terms of the staff, because I think it speaks to both the timing issue and staff. The only staff that are affected by this proposal are staff that already face a transition. I'm one of them. It's like this position, those of us who are appointees, executive level for both state board and CDE, all would have to be reappointed by new governor, whether they work for the state superintendent of public instruction, should we keep status quo, or should it be under this new proposal. So the only positions, literally the only ones that get affected by this, are positions that already are potentially under transition. So that's one piece of this. And that's why we talk about this point of transition happening around the electoral cycle. Right. Because all of us who are in these positions know that we may not hold these jobs. We have to assume we won't, depending on what the electoral cycle holds, both the CD level and SB level who are appointees. Secondly, we at the administration and on behalf of the governor, when he gave us this charge, this is not being undertaken lightly. We've been in discussions with CalHR, a reference, the discussion our Department of Finance colleagues are having with Ledge Council to look at all of these. various pieces. And that's why what is in trailer bill are those that are those ones that were identified as being critical for the structural move that we've made and everything else right now with an acknowledgement that that is a huge undertaking to figure out how many of these are things that would stay absolutely under the department because that makes sense. That work continues forward. Although granted, I know LA hosts their own suggestions for what it might look like. No changes would be needed, but there's references that are nothing to need, but there It may somewhere it would make sense. There's others where it would make sense it would stay with offices of the superintendent of public instruction, maybe where there's things like personnel commission appointment authority and things like that. So there's been a lot of work to try to get that ready. No doubt it would be a heavy lift. There's going to be a heavy lift regardless, as there is at a significant point of transition, when you get a new administration both on the executive branch and you get a new office of superintendent of public instruction, a whole host of new folks who come in. So that's my attempt to speak to that piece of it. In terms of where you start, I still think it is not absent discussions and thought about how else we do all the other supports. At this very same time, the legislature, the governor's office, SBR, are engaged in conversation about how we do better supports and structures across the entire system. It's always a process of continuous improvement. We're always trying to iterate and improve about how we do that. It's just that for these moves of this size and this significance that require shifting structures, that's why those get elevated. It not like the other conversations are continuing or aren deemed equally as important I appreciate that I said what I wanted to say about that

Yes, that's correct. And would have the similar value that we know is asserted is an important thing for us to be able to do. Part of the plenary authority. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to have some questions, but I would love to get to the next panel because I definitely know that it's quite a long one. So I'll just make a brief comment. And I just want to appreciate my colleague from Oakland talking about sort of this idea of putting students and families at the top. I do think that needs to be the priority in everything we're doing, whether we move forward with this proposal or not. And I did appreciate a lot of the comments from all our presenters on this panel in particular. What I do want to just mention briefly is that I think at its core, and this does not mean that this proposal is the correct one, but at its core, I think there are flaws with the status quo. I think they've obviously been pointed out by the PACE report, were previously pointed out by the LAO. I think there's been reports in the past that have really pointed out some of the flaws in our governance structure. So that doesn't necessarily, mean this proposal from the governor is the right one. But I do think that there are some real merit in this idea that the status quo needs adjustment. So I'll just point that out. But I think I was going to ask this as a question, but I will just more pose it rhetorically for now. And the last thing, and I'm going to ask the next panel, so Dave, probably get ready for this one, if you're listening, is how does this proposal from the governor empower locals and support students, right? So, and again, I'm not going to ask you to answer it, just because of time, but that's what I would love to hear from our next panel as well is, how are we actually empowering local governments? One thing that really stood out to me is that there is a lot of support from local administrators and, you know, locals on this proposal, and that that does speak volumes to me and would love to, as we continue to like have this conversation, get a further answer to that. But thank you all for sharing and appreciate your perspectives.

Appointees take a while to happen. They don't happen very, very quickly. I'll start with Superintendent Thurman. How, in your first, I know there's been, you've been eight years, so there's got to be changes. But in your first set of appointments that were made, when did you fill the, I don't know how many positions there are, but whatever that is, when did you sort of, when were you complete with that task? Senator, it's been an ongoing process because some of the appointees have timelines, they have terms like we do. The Personnel Commission is one of the first ones that I would mention. On my first day, I was handed a stack of Personnel Commission appointments that needed to be made because their terms expired before I was even sworn in. And so it's a rolling process. And you are correct. Sometimes it can take weeks. Sometimes it can take months to make those appointments. Okay. And Mr. Allen, I'm not sure when you took the position. I don't know if you started when the governor started or not, but how is that process in the appointments that you, well, in your position, but also others related to the education appointments made by the governor? Yeah and to be clear I started in October 2020 So after my predecessor Karen Stavwalters had served under Governor Brown administration and then served through the beginning of Governor Newsom administration which of course is always an option Really varies I mean I probably I want to defer to my colleagues from the appointments unit I know that in the initial rollout of a new administration because it was part of this process a bit there's a lot of both interviews and planning so that much like Superintendent Thurman referred to, kind of day one, new governor gets sworn in, they can hit the ground running, and they can issue a lot of appointments. subsequent appointments usually depends on the time for the governor to take the time to review those and approve them. Okay. I would state that it appears to me, and in reflection of this particular part of the proposal, that we should be more cognizant of the time that this could take. And I'm not so sure it is just as easy as, you know, flipping a switch and then it happens. So I'd like to get more information about that. Let me ask you also about – I heard you state earlier as the chair asked about your position on certain things. And I said this to you before, so it's not a surprise. The LAO's recommendations to me are significant and have tremendous value. And I think what you've stated here today, which you've stated before to me, is that they're – I don't know if you're open. I think maybe that – I want to make sure you answer that with your words, not any words that I put in your mouth. But what is your – how are you approaching the feedback that's been received, whether it's today or in the LAO's analysis that came out last week? Yeah, thank you so much. I think you're referring to my caveat that I gave, which is that I personally can't today reflect the decisions. Obviously, they have to take up to the governor and the team and get their reflections. But that upon the initial receipt of the LAO's report, I think that at least at staff level, there was a lot of appreciation for the good thinking behind those and thought there were reasonable points made and good things for further conversation. In terms of ultimately what the positions would be on those, obviously, I have to wait and defer. Yeah. I want to respectfully share with you that you said earlier something you heard from me and probably others. I think you said you heard it from others that you've been asking some of your colleagues, agency heads and directors about coming before the legislature and being asked for information. And oftentimes we actually don't get folks who come up who would come from agencies. And sometimes when they do, responses such as, we don't know how we feel, we'll get back to you. I just want you to know that that may come across not as you intended to, but certainly from a frustration level from a legislature that has seen over the course of years now, certainly the years I've been here, that what often feels lack of a partnership in the details of the proposals that I think we find very worthy in the administration, but then the inability to have a conversation about how we feel we can make it better together. And I just want to acknowledge that this feels a little bit like that just because it be nice to understand how strongly you may feel about something versus something else to then really focus our attention and time to working collaboratively to the same outcome that we're all hoping, I think, to achieve, which is a student's focus, students first approach to governance models that lead to those results. And so I have to say that because I do feel that others have said that, but it's important to acknowledge. And so I would love to actually sit here and ask you about, what about this recommendation from the LAO and that recommendation? Because then that helps us kind of really set expectations and do more due diligence and spend more hours on research to get to that place, and it's just hard to do so when that type of exchange doesn't happen. And so to the point earlier about not having a collaborative, I mean, it just feeds that narrative, which is certainly not one you're trying to be a part of, but I just want you to know it just feels real. I hear you. And to the extent I can offer anything in terms of observation and our thoughts on those various proposals, I just, and I think you'll appreciate from where I stand, obviously can't represent my principal's views on something we haven't had a chance to brief him on, right? So I can't commit to anything. I think, and with respect to certain aspects, very happy to keep talking it through. I think that, you know, as I attempted to share, and apologies for falling short, with respect to most of the LAO's recommendations, I think that We thought very well thought through things that we think would be worthy to consider and could talk about those more one-on-one. To identify one that I know there's going to be potential tension around is when we talk about changing the scope of the governor's gubernatorial authority over appointments. That's a conversation that folks well beyond those of us who work for the governor in the education sector will have some feelings about. So I expect that would be one that would require much more conversation. I think with respect to those that have to do more in the day-to-day management of both policy and implementation on the education side, obviously I can share a bit more. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah, no problem committing to that. And I think now that we have some more of those details of the questions that have come up, both here today and in the lead up, that allows us to kind of work that through and come back with very specific feedback. Appreciate that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I don't think I've testified here in this new building. Jeff Freitas, president of CFT, high school math teacher. And what I would like to start with is the upside down flipping of that chart. Policies are implemented or passed here, but they have to be implemented by the educators on the ground to get to the students. So we can talk about how to read. It doesn't mean that it gets passed here and signed by the governor. It just automatically happens with the children. So we have to be thoughtful about what the educators on the ground are actually experiencing with those policies. So my first concern is when a past – let's look at the past executive branches that have had total control. Let's look at the president. Has total control over the education system, and that's what they're elected to do. During my history as an educator, we have a nation at risk, no child left behind, race to the top, and currently dismantling the U.S. Department of Education and how that's being implemented and how that has devastated many of the education systems that we're trying to correct now. Since I was a teacher in 1994, I should have Robert's hair, but I don't. We've implemented charter schools. We've changed testing and the types of testing. We've implemented and taken away peer assistance and review, class size reduction. That has gone away. bonuses for include increased testing attacks on teachers through due process elevated testing and TK those some of those are positive some of those are negative those are all the things that I felt as an educator now that wasn't something that was implemented through the superintendent or implemented through the governor that was passed by the legislature that was funded by the governor. And you're probably wondering, what's my position on here? That's what we're feeling is what we pass. How is that implemented? I've had a different position as a leader of an organization that works with all these educators. And during COVID is one of the best examples and relying on the superintendent, the staff, and the Department of Education on getting that information out. So I am usually, my organization, a couple of our organizations are more connected to those educators that are touching the lives of those children more than anybody else that we're talking about. And we used the Department of Education. We used the superintendent because of those relationships. And the concern we have with this change, with this proposal, and it's not even what the PACE proposal is, it's a lack of democracy. They tried to address that, but this does strip the democracy. The reason they're doing it this way is because they have failed three times to get this done through democracy, as was stated from the first speaker. And I question what the long term, because during that period of time since 94 that I was an educator, the other things that were tossed out there, it's let's consolidate all the school districts within one county to be one school district like San Francisco. I think there's three countywide districts in the state. I think Feather River is the other one. I can't name the third one. You probably, there you go, Amador. Thank you. That's been, that was one thing. And eliminate the county office of education. All of these things are thrown out, even thrown out out there to eliminate the election of school boards. This is the reverse of a democracy. But I wonder if, you know, some of you mentioned the long-term plan. What is the long-term plan? Is this it? Or are there other steps that are being looked at? We believe, CFT believes, that this proposal is going in the wrong direction. As the superintendent, the current superintendent stated, really it's the other direction, giving more authority to the superintendent to implement these things, adding those things to their superintendent while still over the CD as the proposal is talking about. But what's more important is more with more funding to that role. When the legislature and then the governor signs all of these committees that the Department of Education, the superintendent, or receive, there's no funding to them. So it's great that all those superintendents and all the administrators and all the academias can go without taking a day off. But if you want a practitioner, if you want an educator, a teacher, or a classified to go attend these, they either have to take the day off, take a sick leave, use up their day, or the unions have to pay for their day of release time to go be the expert on these panels. So it's really the reverse that we need to be looking at. We need, as the superintendent Thurman said, we need to be funding that, giving more power to that agency and to that superintendent as opposed to the other. And the other thing, we can compare what other states have done. As the first panel said there is no evidence that there any change Let look at where the governor has total control Do we want to be like Florida Do we want to be like Ohio That is not the direction that I would want to go in this state in certain issues And let's look at the comparisons of other states that currently also have this, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, that probably have a smaller achievement gap. But what do they have that we don't have? It's not this structure. It's funding. They have much more funding in those three states than California, and we're the fourth largest economy in the world. So what the focus needs to be on to improve our education here is not the shuffling of what I would say, you know, our furniture in our living room. the funding education, the staffing shortage that is a concern, the nurses and librarians that we need in our schools. Those are the areas that we need to be focusing on and not the shifting of roles and responsibility and reducing it actually in the wrong direction. The one thing that I do like about the proposal is having the SBI sit on the community college council. But just to mention, we already have the lieutenant governor that sits on all three higher education committees. The lieutenant governor already sits on the UC, already sits on the state CSU, and already sits on the community college council. And just to note about the community college council is no one is elected there except for the lieutenant governor. Everyone else is appointed by the governor, and that's not a system that works really well to oversee the community college system. The other places that you see, if you look at a majority of the states, if you look at that one sheet that lists all the four different models, almost half have some type of elected official, whether it's the state board that's elected. There will be no state board member that's elected in the state of California where other states do have state boards that are elected by the state. This is going in the wrong direction of eliminating their democracy and oversight of the public education system, the largest budget area in the state of California, removing the voice of the people and individual person that is elected solely for education and education concerns, where the focus of the governor is so spread through so many different areas. and also missing the mark on what we really need to focus on right now. So thank you.

Good afternoon, Dr. Patel and committee members. My name is Dave Gordon, and I'm the Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools. where for the past 21 years I proudly served the 13 school districts and 255,000 students of Sacramento County. I am also here today on behalf of the California County Superintendents, the statewide association that supports me and my 57 other county superintendent colleagues. After 40-plus years in public education, including as a former district superintendent, and Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Education, the primary message I hope to convey is this. Today's proposal to align the state's support for educators and school leaders can have tangible, real-world benefits for students and families. And the reasons come down to two things focus and ownership I want to start with focus Each state superintendent brings their own priorities and goals to the office Many, if not most, of these goals have merit. Having worked at the CDE, however, I can say with certainty that the department's talented staff are often splitting their time between, first, the priorities of you all, And second, whoever is the state superintendent at that moment. That competition for attention tends to divert the department from its primary focus, which is implementing state and federal policies. Focus, I am told, is one reason the legislature and governor often assign special initiatives to county offices of education and other entities. Recent examples include supporting the rollout of community schools and universal pre-kindergarten, creating educator trainings to support our LGBTQ students or students with disabilities. Even FICMAT, which has long and effectively supported the fiscal accountability of schools, lives at a county office of education. County offices possess expertise and strong regional relationships with school districts, and as a county superintendent, we can nimbly refocus our resources to meet the legislature's goals and be held accountable for our progress. Aligning the department's leadership under the governor has the potential to offer the same benefit county superintendents can offer their staffs, the ability to stay focused on the policies set by the legislature and governor and see to their implementation in a quality fashion. Second reason this governance proposal directly impacts students comes down to ownership. In general, when you, the legislature, pass a law and the governor signs that law, the governor is agreeing to implement that policy through their administrative agencies. That means the governor and all of their appointees must be on the same page in order to make it successful. But for public education, as you heard from many of the other witnesses, the legislature and governors hand off their policies to the CDE, which is accountable to a separate elected official. That is a problem when, for example, the department is not equipped to move on those policies immediately. when senior leadership may experience turnover, the department can lose its relationships with local leaders and its institutional memory. That makes it extremely difficult to roll out new state initiatives. In some cases, the governor and the legislature skip the department entirely, assigning new initiatives to state agencies that do report to the governor, like we saw with the Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, and to some extent, the various workforce development initiatives. And as leaders yourselves, you can appreciate that when families raise questions about their local schools, finger-pointing is not a welcome response. They deserve to know where the buck stops. So if we want to see major education initiatives rolled out in a timely fashion and with fidelity, We need the department's top leadership to feel the same ownership that you all and the governor feel when you enact those laws. To conclude my remarks it no surprise that the governor has introduced this reform It can allow the department to focus on its core role of supporting LEAs and students with the backing of the person who signed those bills into law It's about focus and ownership. And I'm very sensitive to the fact that all of this work cannot take place in the blink of an eye. It has to be very carefully thought through. The Legislative Analyst Report points out some of the ways this must be done. But my message to you is the hundred years of reports and difficulties we've had in bringing innovation and new approaches to our families and our young people in the schools, in the communities who badly need the support. We're not always getting that done now. And if we can take steps to make that more effective, more efficient, I think that will serve us all well. And as far as maintaining the democratic approaches to this, we're all for that. And I think this is about all of us working together, legislature, state superintendent, Department of Education folks, county superintendents, other players in the process to make sure we can do both. We can do this in sensitive, democratic fashion, but also get it done so we can get the services to the parents and the students. So I hope my perspectives have been helpful to you this afternoon, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a real honor to be here today representing the groups you see on the letter. There's passed out a range of education equity organizations throughout the state. But first of all, I want to thank all of you first for your perseverance, not the sexiest of issues, but appreciate you focusing in and what you've all been saying. And that this is about, as Assemblymember Bonta said, the student. This is about student outcomes. And it's why I'm so passionate about the governor's proposal of one can be passionate about education governments. And just to speak personally for just a minute, having been in the legislature, having the honor of serving on this committee, having been a longtime education advocate, part time, a county school member for 24 years, teaching California politics at Cal. Two things that have always just been so frustrating to me. One is these persistent achievement gaps. And we have to be realistic and look at the rest of the country. the highest gaps by income, among the highest gaps by race. And if you look at the student outcomes, other than our most privileged districts, we're below. And we need to fix that. I mean, I know we all, all of us here care deeply about that. And second, in all those roles, I have never been able to explain our education governance system. It is irrational and it makes no sense. So is this adopting this proposal? is this going to miraculously change student outcomes and solve all this? Of course not. We're a whole child group and all the issues that have been mentioned here, more dollars, early childhood health. We have to do a hundred things as a parent of three kids, for goodness sake. This is complicated stuff. But government governance is foundational. It's a prerequisite. And it's a first step that will help with all the other things that we need to do. And just to keep points. We have to look at what's going on around us in the rest of the country and rest of the world. Every state and its most and so many countries that are ahead of us all have a governance structure that you can explain and sensible governance. We don't. There's got to be something to that. And second is implementation. As I sat here today, I think there was a lot of agreement. We no one wants a superintendent making policy. For goodness sake, that means lawsuits, right? You know, doing the legislature's job. So it's not that. It's all about implementation. And implementation is key. I know after LCFF was passed, a lot of us were celebrating. Yay. And we realized that was just 20 percent. It's all in implementation. And that implementation needs to be done in a more coherent fashion, you know, in the way that the governor's proposal is suggesting. So it's not unclear who's doing what. And I'll just close with, you know, a personal anecdote on this. Let's focus on the student talking to a dad during COVID, who unfortunately, one of my great regrets, not speaking fluent Spanish through an interpreter, saying that his kid had one hour of instruction during the first few months of COVID, one hour. There's not a single high income kid in California that was dealing with that. And it was a little confusing at that time. Who was in charge? Who do we point the finger to? And what do you tell that dad? And it was confusing for me. This, this, this school board. This proposal is the first important step in having a coherence governance structure, which is a prerequisite to doing all the other things we need to do to improve student achievement. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Next, Adam

Thank you for your testimony. Next up is Dr. Daryl Camp, President of the Association of California School Administrators. Thank you.

thank you for that and to bring us home we will have Seth Bramble, the Legislative Relations Manager from the California Teachers Association.

governance proposal and related budget trailer bill language. Chapter leaders come to us and ask, what will the state superintendent's role be? While the California Department of Education has room for improvement. We question whether this proposal addresses the real issues. Teachers ask us, what are the duties of the newly envisioned superintendent? It's kind of very unclear. I want to lift up three examples of concerns that we have about the current system. First of all, teachers report that guidance from the California Department of Education is often unavailable when it's needed. The question that we ask, how does this governance proposal address the need for timely, actionable guidance. I know the PACE panelist referenced this issue regarding Assemblymember Bonta's question. When the superintendent Thurman responded, he mentioned the imperative of fully fund schools. We agree with both of these points. We need guidance. We need it actionable. We need to fully fund our schools. And I know that Dr. Camp by my side echoed those two points, but this is a capacity issue. This is a capacity issue requiring more staff expertise, not a change in the superintendent's role. Another concern is teacher voice. Recently, we worked with the California Department of Education to address a shortage of instructional material reviewers in English language arts and English language development who are teachers. Elevating the voice of educators is critical to meeting the needs of California students. We certainly appreciate the inclusion of teacher voices here today on the panel. Must ask, though, how does changing the role of the state superintendent help ensure that teacher perspectives are consistently represented. A third concern, when new funding is allocated for specific purposes, we've seen instances where the California Department of Education lacked a staff to ensure the money was spent effectively. Our local chapters often discuss accountability problems like this. How will this proposal ensure that funding is monitored and used to achieve its intended goals? How do we ensure that the funds that our students are generating with their average daily attendance is used to meet their immediate needs? Again, this is not an issue of governance structure, but one of capacity and priorities. The California Teachers Association has broader concerns about the shifting of the oversight of the California Department of Education from an elected state superintendent to a governor-appointed position. These concerns fall into three areas. Number one, undermining democracy. Number two, creating confusion. And number three, mixing education with other state issues. So let's start with undermining democracy. How would this proposal impact voters' ability to choose someone who truly understands and advocates for public education? As has been mentioned, democracy gives people a voice in decisions that shape their communities. when you remove a voter's ability to elect a superintendent accountable to the public who's running the Department of Education, it undermines this principle. Education is one of the state's most critical issues, and its leadership should reflect the will of the voters and not a single appointee. Second, confusion. Teachers and local chapters worry this proposal could create confusion. An elected superintendent with no authority over the California Department of Education could lead to a fragmented system. For example, a parent concerned about delays in special education services might reach out to the superintendent, expecting them to convene maybe a work group or direct staff to address the issue, only to find out that the superintendent has no authority to act. Mom or dad may find themselves redirected to a bureaucratic process outside of the superintendent's control. How does this proposal clarify accountability for public education? Instead of unifying the system, it risks creating more questions than answers about who's responsible for California's public schools. Finally, mixing education with other state issues. An appointed leader reporting to the governor could face challenges, given the governor's many responsibilities, such as emergency response, such as water management, small business growth. With so many competing priorities, education might not always receive the focused attention that it deserves. Students need a leader whose sole priority is the success of public schools. So how can we ensure education remains at the forefront and isn overshadowed by other pressing state issues In sum we are neutral on this proposal but we neutral with questions and we neutral with concerns And, you know, will this proposal improve the conditions of teaching and learning? We got questions, but I thank you guys for your time and for assembling what's really a very thoughtful panel today. Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony today. it certainly is the beginning of a conversation that needs to happen. There is this impression that this is very time sensitive. And I feel uncomfortable with making such a large decision in such a short timeline. I kind of echo the sentiments of my colleague to the right of me. However, there's a compelling need to do better for students. We're not getting the outcomes that we want. And I'm very excited to hear and see everybody at the table very engaged in this conversation because we can't wait another day for our students to have improved outcomes. Every day that passes us by is a day that a child is not getting the supports and services that they need. With that, I will turn it to my colleagues first for questions because we are running very long on our hearings. I want to make sure they get their questions in first. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to start with, first of all, saying I appreciate everyone for being here for this panel. I think this was probably the most impactful panel we had today, and that's not to disparage any of the wonderful presenters we had earlier. But, you know, the LAO, as much really good information as they provided, they haven't been in the field of education in the same way that a lot of the folks on this panel have been. And then also, you know, the governor and the state board representative, as well as the superintendent of public instruction, have very specific reasons for why they either support or oppose this proposal. And so I really do appreciate hearing the more local perspective. And I just want to start, and I'll try to keep my questions brief, but I do want to start by asking those representing local governments and children now, the state superintendents as well as AXA, what are some tangible examples for how you think this is going to improve this coordination? I can think of a few from my time on a school board for how there was a lot of miscommunication, a lot of confusion for local school districts and county offices. But just my perspective from a local school district is that, you know, during the pandemic, these things were specifically highlighted as very difficult to keep up with because there was just it was so discombobulated in terms of what was coming down and who was in charge of what. So I don't know if you could speak just very briefly to some tangible things that you think this will help improve. Yeah, thank you for that question, Mr. Hoover. I think one example would be one of the programs that was mentioned, the TK program and the programs associated with that. I think if there had been a real impetus not just to say here some money to do TK and if behind the governor push for that was all of the support of the agencies that needed to help facilities needed to be built liaisons with child care entities needed to be provided for A whole suite of related services needed to be provided but it was nobody fault that those weren available But if somebody had thought of that in advance and put those support services together, that could have gone much more smoothly and delivered the services much more quickly. Just two quick examples. I mean, I think COVID, I mean, I was confused. He calls with the governor's office and department who was in charge, and you saw other states and other countries. It was so much more clear and would have been better for kids. And then number two, LCFF, we're talking about achievement gaps, funding to youth and foster care, English learners. So all these groups on this list have been frustrated with the implementation. And it's been very confusing, and there's been some decisions made not by the current, but the previous superintendent that the groups on this list said seemed to undermine the whole goal of LCFF. Didn't violate the law, but the way it was implemented didn't really get to the funding getting to the students directly. So I think LCFF and COVID are two examples, but could share many more. And from AXA's standpoint, just maybe three examples. I'll be brief with them. The rollout related to community schools probably could have been better. There's just misalignment in timelines. So when money goes out and our inability to spend it during a fiscal year, because when dollars come out, we've made most of our staffing decisions already for the following year. The same might be said for ethnic studies. And I realize everybody owns a portion of that in terms of what's expected and what's funded and how that gets rolled out and how that's communicated. It left a lot of LEAs and uncertainty and candidly still does when we think about ethnic studies. And then lastly, just inconsistency among people with same roles at the department. We think that an administrator can administrate, if you will, the CDE differently than elected officials. We're really clear about my little side job is with a organization that works with school boards, I'll say, throughout the state. So we're very clear about the role of the electeds versus the role of an appointed administrator. They're different. And the way that plays out of getting two different answers, I know my LEA experienced that with a field trip. If LA Unified gets approved for something, we say that that's the best use of Title I funds. It's inconsistent. Yet it's the same thing. We're trying to expose kids with needs to something bigger and beyond our local environment. And we should have the same answer for the same action. So that's just three examples. I have a couple more, but for brevity, I'll leave it there. I appreciate that. And that is really eye-opening. And this is exactly why I asked the question because I think – and you give a lot more than even I had even thought of. So I think that's really helpful in sort of informing this conversation. I'll leave my questions there for now. I just want to close with a comment, at least on my end, of just – I have not made up my mind on this proposal in terms of support or not support. But I do think this has been really helpful today to do that. And I think just pulling some of the things from all of the panels today that we have heard I think we have a real opportunity with this proposal to sort of create a more focused accountability mechanism for education in California which I do care deeply about particularly when it comes to holding our government no matter who that no matter who leading our government accountable for achievement gaps and for academic achievement and student outcomes I think that a really important thing that I see I optimistic about what this could mean for that I would encourage, you know, and I know that the state board may no longer be here, but the governor's to really consider. And the legislature to really push back. Oh, great. Awesome. Hey, the legislature to really push back and require some more legislative accountability here as well. Legislative involvement in the actual selection of who this commissioner ultimately is with that confirmation. I think that's really critical that the legislature have some feedback in that regard. And then the last thing I just wanted to mention that I do have optimism for with this proposal as well is that when politics are disaligned between the state superintendent and the governor's office, I think that can create a lot of tension that is possibly not the best for students. And I think this proposal definitely has the opportunity to sort of align, as a lot of these panelists have talked about, the focus on students while also empowering the state superintendent with a greater focus on accountability, a greater focus on oversight, and a greater focus on just being a champion for our students. And so I think with that, I'll stop talking, but I appreciate the opportunity to participate today. And thank you, Madam Chair, for calling this hearing. Thank you. Assemblymember Alvarez? Thank you. I, too, want to thank the panel here and all the panels. This has been a really important conversation. I think I'm going to leave it with a comment, and I think it's important to, once again, to the chair of this committee and the question of what does this mean to the legislature. And, you know, we heard throughout the panels, I think you all caught that, that legislative authority is maintained. In fact, you know, the LAO, I think the most important notes to sometimes remind ourselves is in the LAO's report, the line that says, under the Constitution, the legislature's authority over public school system and its governance structure is unlimited. except where the Constitution itself provides otherwise. And we have chosen, the legislature has chosen over the years to create other agencies, to move power from one place to the other, give power to one, and we've done that ourselves because we have ultimate authority. And so this conversation is important because we're going to determine what happens next with our input here. And yet I heard example, I think Mr. Lambert talked about one incident. You mentioned COVID and mentioned a second one. What was the second incident you mentioned where you found? LCFF. LCFF. Legislature approved those changes, and then they were implemented by the board. and he rightfully has identified that his organization and many of the others, if not all of the others, in the letter that he's provided in his testimony have called upon us to act in a more equitable, equitable way to serve students that are being underserved as identified by the achievement gaps, of which there are still too many. And yet, we haven't really done that. And so I say that because we are going to be making a fundamental change. The legislature approves this. And so it's not like we do technical changes once we figure out some of these things are bad on a regular basis. It's not like it's a sunset type of situation with business and professions when there's automatically has to come back. For it to come back again, it's going to take some heavy lifting. And so I say that because I want to encourage all of you who have already taken time and been generous with your input to not to continue that because it's better to hear from you now as opposed to once something actually goes into effect and then we say well we should have thought of that or somebody should have said something and so that's why i appreciate the chair having this hearing because it's important to daylight all these things so that we understand and we have a go in eyes wide open we decide to do this. We heard from folks of the different concerns. And if we chose not to address those concerns to the implementation of this, then that's on us. And that's what weighs heavily on me. How do we ensure that we don't make big, larger scale emissions, and you could say mistakes, but definitely emissions in this potential reorganization. That's the work that I hope all of you, those who have come forward today, those who will be providing public testimony and others who haven't yet to help us think through that so that we can address those issues. Those would be my closing comments, Madam Chair. Thank you, Assemblymember Bontem. Thank you, Chair. I want to thank you again for pulling together this incredible discussion, which has been very important. And I think I will just share that it's been very helpful to hear from, you know, the range of stakeholders from teachers in the classroom and para educators and and the administrators all the way down to, you know, the people who are holding up and who are advocates supporting our educational system and from County Office of Education and Mr. Gordon there, who, by the way, I was a mini person who worked with your school district a long time ago with Mike Hansen and Daryl many, many years ago. So good to see you. I think I am also wanting to have eyes wide open. And a lot of the comments that I've made and what I've been listening for is whether or not we actually have been afforded the opportunity to have eyes wide open. And I've heard a lot of the kind of refrain of this is a really good first step and an important step. And I've also heard an understanding that this, for some people, is necessary and insufficient. And I also heard you know with this panel especially this idea that there a lot here that is not going to solve the challenge that we have around closing achievement gaps making sure students are taught better. We haven't been given that information at all. We haven't been given any information around a real live case study. or, you know, choose the pandemic, choose TK implementation, choose LCFF, choose, you know, any of the many initiatives that we've moved forward in the last decade, let's say, where we have identified implementation challenges within that, that are the, where the root cause of that is this governance challenge that we are focusing on right now. We've had a lot of assertions made around that, but we haven't had a lot of data and real life examples to be able to drill down into that. And so I feel like I have my eyes wide open, but I am looking at a paper or kind of a proposal that makes me feel like I need a magnifying glass with my eyes wide open. And I think to Assemblymember Alvarez's point, when we are making such a fundamental shift that has a decades-long impact on the education of our children, I think, I feel like I need more information. There are a lot of proposals that we move forward where we are told, let's do a study. Let's make sure that we gather all the stakeholders together. Let's make sure that we are looking at this with a working group that happens over the course of several years. That is typically what we get back as a response for what needs to happen. What needs to happen in an assembly member. The chair has a bill to that effect right now. And I think that, for me, feels a lot more like good governance than where we are right now, which is a time-pressured proposal where we need to be able to make a decision. and all we have really outlined is a part of that first step for a very major proposal. I don't think that that is the request that I'm making is making the enemy, you know, having the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think it is trying to better understand what that good and that good is right now. And that's what I would like to see. I am, like with Assemblymember Hoover, undecided about whether this proposal is one that we should move forward with. And I'm very thankful to be able to have more questions answered and more exploration of this within our process. What I don't want to have happen is that this becomes a bludgeon with other kind of time pressures and fiscal pressures and choices that cause us to, you know, have to be forced into a decision that ultimately is not going to be good for teaching and learning and our kids. So I'm looking forward to the additional conversations that we need to have. Thank you for those thoughts to my assembly colleagues. This does beg me to ask a question. I looking at the proposed changes that we have on the table and understanding that the changes themselves aren going to make the necessary changes to aligning budget cycles for example so that those on the ground level in our school districts can make timely decisions It's not going to fully fund CDE because that's not how CDE is funded. So CDE is going to continue to be understaffed and overworked. it's not going to specifically make sure that the delivery of supports to our students and our LEAs come in a timely way or in a comprehensive way. Those details really are where I would love to see some of our efforts focused. But we do have a proposal on the table, and we are making a consideration and a determination of the efficacy of that proposal. So for those who are not there yet, we heard from those who are there yet. But for those who are not yet there, I'm hearing loud and clear that the concerns are really fundamental around democracy. I heard that kind of expressed multiple times. But assuming that the challenge, the structural challenge is real, that there is a coherence issue, we've heard that said over and over again, is there something that will get you closer to there? Is there a way we can move that needle? What are your suggestions for us to address this issue of a lack of coherence or a way for us to deliver education more effectively to make sure our children are making the best of their second grade year and are becoming literate before third grade? What can we do that's in addition to or different from the proposal that's on the table that we are considering? And knowing that some of the challenges that I outlined are yet to be addressed. The LAO made some suggestions around shared governance, around having legislative confirmation of the position. But is there something in addition to that that we should be looking at very specifically? Questions we should be asking. If you can give me a cliff note summary highlight, put me in the right direction, give me a North Star. I'm sorry, I might be redundant on this one. I mean, it really, it's the checks and balances. If you're talking about somebody who's going to be dedicated for closing that achievement gap, how about somebody who's elected solely to do that? That's what the state superintendent is there to do is solely, that's their job. A governor appointment person is doing what the governor wants, not what the people want to close that achievement gap. And the solution, I mean, the bills that we carried in the past, 477 and 938, to increase education by 50 percent, which I think was unanimous by this body, really was an effort to close that achievement gap. Looking at the three states that are compared, that we're compared to all the time, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, their funding level is so much higher. The issues that they support of changing this are not going to change. It's still a Department of Education that's still an agency and a bureaucracy that needs to implement this. And the LCFF fight was at the board level, not at the superintendent level. That was the board that voted on those things and had the concerns of my colleague down the row. So I didn't answer what you wanted to answer, and I appreciate the opportunity and you have in this meeting. But that's really what we're looking at. having that hero Shiro you know leading that and being elected and being the voice of the people is who should be leading that department Thank you. And just recognize this is the beginning of these conversations as far as I'm concerned. This is not the end. Mr. Babel. Thank you for the question, Dr. Patel. I think that, you know, organizationally we have certain beliefs. We were all about, you know, creating a more democratic society. How can we think about governance in a more democratic way? I know that there have been conversations about, you know, rather than having appointments, what's the possibility of having, you know, in some cases, the legislature approving folks who get, you know, put on the state. I think there's a lot of different options there to think about how to make it more democratic. But I think we have a core belief that it is better to improve, increase, build a more just and democratic society. Just, you know, to echo some of what my brother Jeff over here said, like, I think it's important that we are dreaming big in our aspirations in terms of the California Teachers Association. We are currently pushing a legislative agenda that's very focused on fully funded schools, not just ensuring that Prop 98 is fully funded, but to even think bigger than that about how do we bring new revenues into the system so that we can create the kinds of school communities that we dream about, that we, you know, really, that we're imagining big. And I think there's a big piece of that that's also, as I've heard a couple times here, about ensuring that the dollars that we're spending on public education are serving the kids right now and dealing with their immediate needs. And right now it's getting siphoned in a lot of different directions. So to the extent that we can focus on ensuring that that money is spent on children's immediate needs, those kids who are generating the funds, that's great. And I've also heard some collective warm feelings about community schools and reimagining our public education system as really hubs in a community, bringing in community resources, shared governance, shared leadership. You know, how do we really do whole child types of instruction? So I think in terms of solutions, that's the solutions that we're putting forward. But I think that that question about, you know, our beliefs around democracy maybe more directly answers some of your inquiry. Thank you. Mr. Weinberger. Thank you. So as I said in my testimony, we support improving coordination and clarifying rules. But major structural changes as this should go to the voters. Californians have consistently said they want direct voice in who leads public education. as this proposal states, or as it currently is, there's no evidence this improves student outcomes. It removes a voter accountable leader that replaces, and replaces it with someone who answers only to the governor. It also reduces superintendents to one vote on large votes instead of in an impotent state leader. So sort of on the lines of over here, there's... There's really, as a proposal, there's really nothing that could get our organization on board. I appreciate that, Kander. Like my colleagues, I'm still undecided on the proposal, and it's important for us to make sure that all those concerns and positive and negatives all are weighed very, very carefully by our deliberative body. I appreciate the time that you've spent with us. I want to thank all of the speakers who joined us today, as well as the public and our committee members. The information and experiences shared today will inform our work of our committee as we continue to seek strategies to refine our statewide governance structure with the ultimate goal of supporting our school and our students. And now we will shift to our public comment. We have one minute for our public commenters. Please step up. Good afternoon chair and members. My name is Debra Bautista-Zabal on behalf of the California Association of suburban school districts. Cal SSD has not taken a formal position on the governor's proposal at this time. However, we appreciate the opportunity to meet with the administration earlier this month to discuss the proposal's goals. We recognize the intent and the address of longstanding challenges in California's education governance structure, a more streamlined coordinated system that has potential to improve clarity and decision-making, strengthen accountability, and provide more consistent guidance to support local LEA agencies across the state. We also appreciate emphasis on ensuring that leadership includes individuals with relevant experience that have perspectives and critical to effective implementation, informed decision-making. At the same time, any restructuring must ensure local education agencies receive strong, responsive support and that local control remains central principle. Changes to governance should not create new barriers, delays, or uncertainties for districts already managing complex student needs. We also encourage continued transparency, stakeholder engagement, and a clear transition plan that includes district voices in shaping how these changes are operationalized. Cal SSD looks forward to continued engagement on this proposal. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair and members. Thank you for holding the hearing. Chris Rief on behalf of the California School Board Association. First and foremost, you got a letter from us as well as our other statewides in terms of the Senate confirmation aspect. Definitely a critical piece in terms of the checks and balances conversation that has occurred throughout the hearing. Second, there does need to be a greater look at the experience of whoever the education commissioner is in terms of not just demonstrable experience in education leadership, but also just organizational leadership, because at the end of the day, that person is also an administrator of a very large bureaucratic agency. So that is critical. Just to dovetail on some of the conversation here, I think a common through line of what you heard was issues of a closing achievement gap. The achievement gap is pernicious. It preceded many of us. Unfortunately, it will probably succeed many of us. But where is the common through line in terms of how we try to address it? From a state perspective, we do have a fragmented governance system. And so to Ms. Bonta's question and to some of the statements that was made by the chair, there needs to be a greater look at. Hello, my name is Cecilia Wilson, and I'm speaking on behalf of CDE employees. I've been a state worker at the California Department of Education CDE for 33 years, and I'm a member leader of SEIU Local 1000. We, the state workers at the CDE, are the people who implement the policies you're discussing. No matter who the SPI is, we, the workers, are here making sure the department program functions on a daily basis despite funding shortages. As Superintendent Thurman uplifted CDE employees have not been brought into this conversation yet My coworkers and I at CDE urge you to engage with CDE employees represented by SEIU Local 1000 regarding these proposed changes and to protect strong legislative oversight Together, let's learn about the problem more deeply, define clear outcomes and measures, test small changes, building on what has already been proven successful so that we can continue to ensure the decisions made here benefit students, workers, and communities. Finally, shifting so much power to the governor and appointees risk weakening the voices of workers, the voters, and communities on the ground. Taking away the voice of the voters should not be done through a backdoor process but brought before the voters. If the proposal is necessary and will serve California students better, then make the case to California voters. I thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts. I look forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Annalisa Quintero. I'm a legislative advocate with Local 1000. As my member Cecilia mentioned, we have folks at the California Department of Education. Our members are the people that implement the policies that you're discussing, and they care deeply about students in strong public schools. We understand the concerns about a fragmented system, but shifting so much power to the government appointees risks weakening independent checks and voices of workers and communities on the ground. Any major structural change as stated by the legislators today should clearly show how it improves outcomes for students and strengthens democratic accountability, not just rearranging boxes on an organization chart. As you develop the trailer bill language, we urge you to engage directly with CDE employees, SEIU Local 1000, and our colleagues at our fellow unions that were here to speak today. And we want to make sure that we're protecting strong legislative oversight and worker input. But we are currently neutral on this issue, and we hope to be in discussion with you soon. I appreciate the ability to speak today. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Yoli Flores, and I am President and CEO of Families and Schools. We're based in Los Angeles. I am also a former school board member in Los Angeles and a former county board of education board member. through the 30-some years that I have been on these boards or represented children and families, the one consistent theme is that parents are disenchanted with the educational system in California. Today's conversation gave me some hope that there might be a legislature, a body that would have the courage to be visionary and to be bold and to put aside perhaps the politics of the day, to ask the question, Chair Patel, that you have asked, what must we do today, not tomorrow, and not in a month or three years, because kids today are losing. Families are disenchanted with the public education system. And yes, they do vote, and they're voting in different ways now. So we count on you to consider this proposal as a first and critical step for coherence so that the fragmentation and the lack of accountability moves toward the successes that we want for kids Our families deserve that. This is their education system. Good evening. Melissa Bardo on behalf of EdTrust West, a research and advocacy organization working with stakeholders throughout the state to dismantle the racial and economic barriers embedded in California schools. We support the proposed education governance reform as we believe the proposed structure brings policymaking and implementation into closer alignment, creating a clearer line of responsibility for results and a stronger foundation for supporting schools. Decades of reports echo themes that we have raised in much of our advocacy over the last 25 years, which is that fragmentation of leadership and core governance functions, funding, policy, implementation and oversight or accountability remains a core barrier to racial equity in education. Our support letter outlines several examples of where this fragmentation or misalignment has undermined policy implementation, resulting in unclear state guidance, inefficient use of program dollars, and insufficient support for educators and school leaders, ultimately contributing to persistent and equitable outcomes for students. We believe that this proposal is an important first step in shaping a system of governance

I miss that. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, chair and members. My name is Natalie Shin on behalf of Californians Together. We are in strong support of the proposed changes to California's education governance structure because stronger alignment at the state level is critical for high-need students, including English learners. Currently, overlapping roles and fragmented authority across state agencies make it difficult to implement policies consistently, leaving multilingual students at risk of uneven access to bilingual programs, language development supports, and qualified bilingual teachers. A clearer governance structure will improve accountability, ensure statewide priorities like the English Learner Roadmap Policy are implemented consistently and strengthen coordination across TK through 12 and higher education. This proposal will help translate strong state policies into real classroom impact, ensuring that high students across California have equitable opportunities to succeed Thank you Good evening Chair and members Eric Paredes with the California Faculty Association

Good evening, Madam Chair and members. Ashley Lugo on behalf of the California County Superintendent. So we want to respond to what several committee members have asked about how this proposal will impact student outcomes. It comes back to allowing the department to focus on the legislature's education initiatives, not competing priorities. and it's about the commissioner having the same ownership for those initiatives as the legislature and governor once laws are passed. So for these reasons, the California County Superintendent support. Thank you.