California Passes Education Governance Reform. What’s Next?: A Conversation with Lupita Cortez Alcalá

Earlier this year, Ideas We’re Watching explored California’s long-standing education governance challenges with Dr. Julie Marsh, one of the authors of the PACE report that helped spark a statewide conversation about the need for reform. Since then, that conversation has moved from research and recommendations to action: the Legislature passed AB 181, and Governor Newsom signed the landmark legislation into law, setting in motion significant changes to how California’s TK–12 education system is governed.

Because this is such an important moment for California’s students, families, and schools, we’re staying with the conversation for one more issue. This time, we turn to Lupita Cortez Alcalá, Executive Director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), to ask the question on everyone’s mind: what’s next?

FIS: California just took a historic step by passing AB 181. Why is this such a significant moment for public education?

L.A.: California has been debating how to improve its education governance structure for more than a century. What AB 181 does is begin to address a fundamental problem that researchers and policymakers have identified repeatedly: no clear alignment between who sets education policy, who is responsible for implementing it, and who is ultimately accountable for whether it works.

AB 181 creates much clearer executive leadership by placing administration of the California Department of Education (CDE) under an Education Commissioner appointed by the Governor and serving under the authority of the State Board of Education (SBE). At the same time, it preserves an elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) and creates an opportunity for that office to focus on serving as an independent statewide voice for students, families, and educators and play an important role in evaluation and accountability.

What makes this especially important is the moment we are in. California has made enormous investments in public education—from universal transitional kindergarten and community schools to literacy, mathematics, expanded learning, and college and career pathways. But good policy and significant investment do not automatically translate into better experiences and outcomes for students. We also need a state system capable of implementing those policies coherently, supporting and building capacity in districts and schools to do the work well, and learning from what is and isn’t working. AB 181 gives California an opportunity to strengthen that infrastructure to make great ideas a reality for our students.

FIS: PACE’s research has long documented the challenges of California’s fragmented education governance system. How does AB 181 address those challenges, and what problems is it designed to solve?

L.A.: Our PACE governance research asks, “Who is responsible to whom, and for what?” In California, that question has historically been surprisingly difficult to answer. Authority is distributed among the Governor, Legislature, SBE, the elected SPI, the CDE, county offices, and numerous other state and regional entities. Local control is an important value in California, but local control works best when the state provides clear direction, coherent implementation support, and meaningful accountability. Our research shows that when roles and responsibilities at the state level are unclear, the effects are felt throughout the system, creating implementation challenges for districts, schools, educators, and ultimately students.

AB 181 addresses an important part of that problem by creating clearer responsibility for administering the CDE and better connecting state policymaking with implementation. It makes it more likely that the head of CDE will bring direct expertise in school and district leadership and a stronger understanding of the implementation needs and constraints facing local systems. It also creates greater clarity about accountability for implementation, while creating an opportunity to strengthen independent evaluation as part of the state’s broader accountability and continuous improvement system.

The broader Getting Down to Facts research reinforces the need to strengthen the state’s ability to support local implementation while maintaining the benefits of local control. This reform begins to establish clearer lines of responsibility. It doesn’t solve every governance challenge California has, but it gives us a much stronger foundation from which to address them.

FIS: Families often experience the education system as confusing and difficult to navigate. How do you hope this new governance structure will ultimately make a difference for students and families?

L.A.: Families should not need to understand the complexities of California’s education governance system to get what their children need. Yet too often, when something isn’t working, it isn’t clear who is responsible, where a family should go for help, or who can actually make a change. That lack of clarity is not just an administrative inconvenience—it can become an equity issue because families with more time, knowledge, or access are often better positioned to navigate a complicated system.

The real test of this reform, therefore, isn’t whether Sacramento has a cleaner organizational chart. It is whether families experience a system that is more responsive, transparent, and accountable. When the state sets a priority, families should be able to see how that priority translates into resources, guidance, and opportunities in their schools. When something isn’t working, there should be clear responsibility for addressing it. And when California makes significant investments in an initiative, families and the public should be able to know whether that investment is improving students’ experiences and outcomes. That is ultimately what better governance should deliver.

FIS: Passing legislation is only the beginning. What will successful implementation require over the next several years, and what should advocates be watching?

L.A.: Changing the structure creates an opportunity; implementation determines whether that opportunity results in meaningful change. AB 181 calls for the new Education Commissioner to lead the next phase of system redesign and develop recommendations for further governance consolidation and streamlining by October 2027. That process cannot simply be about moving boxes on an organizational chart. It needs to ask what capabilities the state actually needs to implement policy well, where those capabilities currently reside, what should be strengthened, and how state, regional, and local institutions should work together.

As implementation moves forward, there are several things that will be important to assess: whether roles and responsibilities become genuinely clearer; whether CDE develops stronger implementation and capacity-building capabilities; whether county offices, CCEE, and other regional partners are aligned around a coherent support strategy rather than overlapping initiatives; and whether California builds a strong, independent evaluation function that allows us to learn from major public investments. Most importantly, we should be asking whether these changes are helping state and local systems ensure that all students—particularly those who have historically had the least access to opportunity—have equitable access to high-quality instruction, effective educators, and the supports they need to succeed.

Another important consideration is whether educators, families, students, and local leaders have meaningful opportunities to inform the redesign. Critics of AB 181 raised a concern that moving the SPI out of administrative leadership of CDE could weaken democratic representation in state education governance. Ensuring that the redesigned system preserves meaningful democratic forums for public voice, participation, and accountability will therefore be especially important. PACE’s governance research identifies six domains that contribute to effective governance: stakeholder involvement, capacity, accountability, knowledge and evidence, strategic thinking, and a whole-of-system perspective. These dimensions provide a useful framework for assessing the implementation of this reform.

Advocates have an especially important role. Passage of the legislation is a major milestone, but in many ways, the hard work starts now. Advocates should continue asking whether the new structure is making government more coherent and responsive—and, ultimately, whether that greater coherence is translating into more equitable opportunities and better outcomes for students—not simply whether the statutory changes have been completed.

FIS: Looking ahead five years, what changes would convince you that this reform has been successful?

L.A.: Five years from now, I would hope we are talking much less about who is responsible for what because the answer has become clear. PACE’s governance research points to a system in which policy and funding, implementation and capacity development, and evaluation and system accountability are distinct but interconnected functions, all organized around a shared vision for California’s students. Success would mean, first of all, that California had a vision, with a small number of clear, statewide goals for students that are widely known and understood across the education system. Secondly, we would see greater coherence across those functions—not only clearer roles among state agencies and regional partners, but stronger connections between the policies California adopts, the capacity needed to implement them well, and the evidence we use to understand whether they are working.

I would want policymakers and local education agency leaders to have rigorous, independent evidence about whether major investments are working, for whom, and under what conditions—and to use that evidence to inform continuous improvement. But ultimately, governance is a means, not the outcome. The most important measure of success is whether a more coherent system is helping California deliver more equitable access to high-quality learning opportunities and better outcomes for students, particularly those who have historically been underserved. That is the promise of better governance: creating the conditions for the entire system to work more effectively on behalf of California’s students.