I have spent most of this election writing about Laguna Beach schools and, beneath it all, a larger question: what do we expect from public education, and what are we willing to invest in to make it work?
That question doesn’t stop at our LBUSD boundary. California’s governor signs the budget that funds our schools, the lieutenant governor sits on the governing boards of our public universities, the state superintendent becomes California’s most visible voice on public education, and assemblymembers write the laws districts have to follow.
So, I looked at the rest of my ballot through an education lens.
For me, I believe in strong public schools; teachers and staff should have a meaningful voice in how those schools operate, academic expectations should be high, and every kid should be safe and welcome in a public school. I also believe local communities should be able to invest in themselves.
After spending the last year watching what happens when governance gets swallowed by politics, I have become particularly interested in candidates who seem more focused on running institutions than fighting the next culture war.
Here is where that leaves me.
Governor: Xavier Becerra
Steve Hilton has put forward a detailed education agenda, and some parts are perfectly reasonable, including that California should care a lot more about whether kids can read by third grade. Phonics matters. Accountability matters. Schools should be expected to produce results.
But then Hilton goes much further. His education plan calls for expanding alternatives that allow public education dollars to follow students outside traditional public schools, making it easier to convert schools to charters, changing teacher tenure and dismissal rules, and retaining third graders who do not meet reading benchmarks.
That is where he and I do not see eye to eye.
I have spent a year digging into a public school district. I have seen plenty worth criticizing. I have never come away believing the answer is to weaken the institution itself. Public schools should be pushed to improve. Bad decisions should be challenged. Spending should be scrutinized. Leadership should be accountable.
But my goal is still a better public school.
Hilton also opposes California policies protecting transgender students in school athletics. That fits into a broader political approach I have very little interest in importing further into California education.
This state has roughly six million public school students. They need strong teachers, functioning facilities, literacy support, special education, mental-health resources, and schools that can prepare them for whatever comes next.
That is where I want the attention and why I’m voting for Xavier Becerra.
Lieutenant Governor: Fiona Ma
This race is easy to overlook, but the lieutenant governor actually sits on the governing boards of California’s public university systems.
Gloria Romero has spent years advocating for a very different education model. Her own campaign platform emphasizes school choice, parental rights, teacher-tenure reform, and what she calls “meritocracy.” She supports vouchers that would allow taxpayer dollars to help pay for private-school education.
There is a legitimate conversation to have about why families leave public schools and why some parents feel their children are not being served. But I keep coming back to the same place: I want the state to put its energy into improving public education.
That includes higher education.
Affordability, housing, and transfer pathways matter. Also, students need to be able to get into a UC, CSU, or community college and afford to stay there. Education is a public investment. I want the person sitting on those university boards approaching it that way.
For me, that is Fiona Ma.
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Richard Barrera
This may be the clearest education choice on my ballot.
Sonja Shaw has built much of her public profile around some of the exact fights I would like to see less of in public education.
Under her leadership, Chino Valley Unified adopted a parental-notification policy involving students’ gender identity. A court blocked major portions of it. The district also adopted policies allowing books to be challenged and removed from school libraries. Shaw has repeatedly pushed restrictions on transgender students participating in girls’ athletics.
These are not side issues someone dug out of an old voting record.
They have been central to her public identity.
And after watching our own school politics for the last year, I have very little appetite for electing a statewide superintendent whose political rise has been fueled by turning schools into another front in the culture war.
California has enough actual education problems: kids who cannot read at grade level, chronic absenteeism, teacher shortages, special education, mental health, aging facilities, and districts trying to make long-term decisions while state funding rises and falls underneath them. Those are school problems.
Richard Barrera has emphasized student achievement, stable school funding, community schools, and student civil rights. His background also includes years on the San Diego Unified board and close relationships with organized labor.
Yes, the teachers’ union strongly supports him.
I know that will be a negative for some voters.
It isn’t automatically one for me.
After everything I have written about Laguna, I am far more interested in whether teachers and staff have a meaningful seat at the table than in treating their involvement as inherently suspicious.
Schools work because people work in them, and I’m comfortable with an education leader who remembers that.
State Assembly District 72: Chris Kluwe
This race feels particularly connected to what I have been writing about.
Chris’s platform includes fully funding public schools, equitable access to education, and protecting LGBTQ+ and civil rights.
I have also spoken with Chris personally.
Those conversations mattered.
I came away believing he understands something that has become increasingly important to me: government still has to govern after the outrage cycle moves on.
Gracey Van Der Mark offers a very different record.
As a Huntington Beach councilmember and mayor, she sponsored a policy directing librarians to review and relocate children’s library materials containing “sexual content.” She supported creating a politically appointed parent review board with authority over children’s library materials.
She also authored a proposal declaring Huntington Beach a “Parents’ Right to Know” city in direct response to California law governing disclosure of students’ gender identity.
I am a parent and do not need to be convinced that parents have rights. But my parental rights do not give me ownership over everyone else’s child.
Parents should decide what their own children read and advocate for them. Ask questions. Challenge schools when necessary. Demand answers.
I become much more skeptical when that turns into politicians deciding what an entire community can access, overriding professional librarians, or repeatedly centering government attention on LGBTQ kids. We have seen enough of where that style of politics leads.
Chris and I will undoubtedly disagree about things, but he still has my vote.
Proposition 2: Yes
This one does not need 800 words.
Prop. 2 increases California’s rainy-day reserve cap from 10% to 20% of General Fund revenue and requires more savings during high-revenue years. The purpose is to leave the state with larger reserves when the economy turns.
I work in public-sector planning and predictability matters.
Schools cannot hire people, build programs, and make multi-year commitments responsibly when funding repeatedly falls off a cliff.
Prop. 2 will not fix California’s education system.
It gives the state a larger cushion when revenues drop.
Yes on 2.
Proposition 3: Yes
Also easy for me.
Prop. 3 makes permanent the higher income-tax rates on high earners that California voters originally approved in 2012.
Those rates are currently scheduled to expire in 2031.
Making them permanent is estimated to preserve roughly $5 billion to $15 billion in annual state revenue, with substantial funding going to public education.
The argument against it is obvious and fair: voters were told the tax increase was temporary.
I still support extending it.
Our schools have now operated with this revenue structure for more than a decade. Allowing billions in recurring revenue to disappear, then acting surprised when education funding feels the impact, doesn’t make much sense to me.
Public education costs money.
If we believe it is important, eventually we have to fund it like it is important.
Yes on 3.
Proposition 43: No
Prop. 43 would raise the approval threshold for certain voter-initiated local special taxes from a simple majority to two-thirds.
California already requires two-thirds voter approval for many local special taxes. I see no reason to expand that threshold.
Under Prop. 43, 33.4% of voters could stop a dedicated local revenue measure supported by 66.6% of the community.
That could affect taxes proposed for schools, public safety, infrastructure, and other local services.
I talk a lot about local control, and this is part of it.
When residents organize, collect signatures, put something on their own ballot, and persuade a majority of their neighbors to support it, I am comfortable letting that majority count.
No on 43.
Measure A: Yes
And then there is Laguna.
Measure A would authorize LBUSD to issue up to $83 million in bonds for school facilities.
The district built its schools between 1930 and 1968. Identified needs include aging roofs, underground pipes, accessibility upgrades, emergency communications, fire-safety improvements, and other repairs. Bond money cannot be used for regular operating expenses or administrator salaries.
I have spent enough time reviewing the facilities plan to know these needs are real.
They also do not disappear if the bond fails. The pipes will still be old, roofs will still leak, fire-safety work will still need to happen, and the only thing that changes is how the district pays.
When a school district has to absorb major capital projects into its operating budget, eventually something else gives. Measure A is structured to replace the district’s existing school-bond tax as it expires, at an estimated rate of approximately $8.85 per $100,000 of assessed value.
I have written plenty about accountability in this district, and will continue to.
But accountability also means being willing to pay for the things we expect public institutions to maintain.
Yes on Measure A.
The Throughline
I did not arrive at these votes because I think public institutions are perfect — I have spent an entire year documenting evidence to the contrary.
I want transparency, accountability, competent leadership, strong academics, responsible spending, parents asking hard questions, and elected officials willing to answer them.
I also want public institutions worth fighting for.
That has been the throughline of everything I have written about Laguna Beach schools, and it turns out it is the throughline of the rest of my ballot, too.
While this is how I’m voting on part of my ballot, the most important thing anyone can do is vote. Ballots drop this week, so fill yours out, make your voice heard, and be part of the process.