Tony Thurmond is California’s 28th and current State Superintendent of Public Instruction. He has been a lifelong educator, public school parent, and public servant who has served the people of California for sixteen years in elected office.  At every step, Tony has kept California's kids as his top priority. He knows how to get things done and get results.

Tony is the first Afro-Latino to serve as the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in California. Tony’s mother was an immigrant from Panama who came to San Jose, California, to be a teacher.  Tony’s father was a U.S. soldier who didn’t return to his family after the Vietnam War.  Tony met him for the first time when he was an adult.  After Tony’s mother died when he was 6, Tony and his brother were raised by a cousin who they had never met until they showed up on her doorstep.

Tony’s family struggled to overcome poverty and grew up on public programs like the Free Lunch Program, food stamps, and donations of government cheese. Tony grew up thinking college was out of reach. But with the help of his amazing cousin, supportive teachers, and strong public education, Tony became student body president at Temple University and went on to earn two master's degrees at Bryn Mawr College.

Since then, he has been a life-long advocate for youth and families. He spent 12 years working in schools and started his career working with at-risk youth, running after-school programs in Alameda County, leading school-based mental health programs, and teaching life skills and civics.  

Prior to his election as State Superintendent, Tony was a Councilmember in the City of Richmond from 2005 to 2008, a school board member on the West Contra Costa County Unified School board from 2008 to 2012, and a State Assemblymember from 2014 to 2018.

Tony has two daughters who attend California public schools. Tony’s commitment to California public schools is grounded in creating a more inclusive place for his daughters’ generation and beyond.

In Sacramento, Tony has focused on equity and promoting academic success for students of all backgrounds as his guiding North Star to transform and improve California’s public schools.

Tony kept his promise from four years ago to prioritize public education with record investments in our school system, including securing over $6 billion in the last two years to fund comprehensive support services for students, teacher recruitment, and bilingual learning programs and work towards achieving universal preschool for all four-year-olds and universal meals for hungry students.

In his first term, Tony committed to making sure school is safe for all students in an increasingly diverse California. He worked to address implicit bias in schools, train teachers and administrators on how to support LGBTQ students, develop an inclusive ethnic studies

curriculum, and close the achievement gap.

When COVID-19 disrupted our school system and unveiled a major digital divide, Tony worked to ensure all students would have the necessary tools to stay connected to their educators, counselors, and school staff. He secured over a million computers for students, helped secure $6 billion to get high-speed internet access to all kids across the state, and pushed service providers to supply low-cost, high-speed internet to students.

During the pandemic, Tony Thurmond led the way for California’s public schools to reopen safely. He made five million COVID rapid testing kits available at no cost to schools and administered an additional $5.2 billion for COVID-19 school relief that provided everything from computers to mental health counseling to personal protective equipment so that students could get back to learning, safely.

Tony believes that we need to spend more money on schools, not prisons. He fought for more money to invest in education and allocated millions of dollars to schools to use for programs to reduce chronic absenteeism and suspensions. 

A father of 5, Lance Christensen has 20 years of direct experience in education policy, as a teacher, legislative consultant, parent advocate, education nonprofit executive, and public finance specialist. Lance knows what it takes to produce an exceptional education, has the vision and leadership to re-establish California as the country’s best place to educate our children, and is willing to fight alongside parents on behalf of their children. 

California’s public education is broken and continues to get worse. Despite record spending on our schools, decades of bad education policies have brought us among the lowest test scores and literacy rates in the nation. Unless dramatic steps are taken now and someone advocates for parents and children at the top, California won’t be able to graduate students who can read, work in the 21st Century’s dynamic economy or participate as thoughtful and engaged citizens in our communities.

Together we will:

• Empower parents to make consequential decisions for their children’s education.

• Hold K-12 schools accountable in their responsibility to provide a constitutionally protected, high-quality public education.

• Allow a wide range of options for educational opportunities where the money follows the student.

We need to add parents back into the education equation.

Ainye Long is a 5th generation public school teacher and an advocate of youth and quality education. Ms. Long is also a 3rd generation Californian public school student, earning a dual Bachelor’s of Arts in Economics and American Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Currently, Ms. Long teaches Mathematics and is Department Chair of Mathematics at Willie Brown Middle School in San Francisco, CA.

Ms. Long has diverse experience in California schools as a teacher, Director of Parent and Community Engagement at the California Charter Schools Association, and Oakland Regional Superintendent at Amethod Public Schools has given her a unique understanding of California students' needs and the administrative systems and structures to get them met. 

As an educator, student, and advocate, Ms. Long enjoys a stellar reputation as a creator of transformative systems, while simultaneously mobilizing and empowering communities through advocacy training and support. Ms. Long continues to transform schools and communities by leading anti-racist and abolitionist training for faculty, and designing engagement programs to empower students to continue meeting standards in changing times.

Marco Amaral is the son of Yolanda Valencia and Miguel Amaral - two working-class immigrants from Mexico. 

Marco Amaral began his advocacy for public education during his time as a student at the University of California – Berkeley. During his time there he was part of several student and worker led movements towards making the University of California system more accessible and affordable for working families in California. Among other jobs, Marco worked as a maintenance and service worker at the Berkeley dining commons for 3 years; he was appointed to the Berkeley Police Review Commission by Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington for 2 years; and, worked at the Alameda County Courthouse as a Justice Corps Fellow. Marco was also elected as President of the Foothill dorms his freshman year. During his Sophomore year he became a Raza Caucus Facilitator and during his Junior year he became the Director of Community Outreach for the Chican@/Latin@ Student Development Center. However, Marco’s greatest love was always working with the Bay Area’s most disenfranchised communities and youth. Here, as a volunteer, is where he learned that he was destined to work within education as a teacher.

Marco began to work for Sweetwater Union High School District in 2015 as a Special Education Paraprofessional, while simultaneously working on his Masters Degree in Special Education at the University of San Diego. After being elected as the Classified Employee of the Year at Mar Vista High School, he moved on to work as a Special Education teacher at Castle Park High – where he currently resides. At Castle Park, Marco has taught mostly Math and Science. In 2020, Marco began his Doctoral Program in Social Justice Education at the University of San Diego. There he focused on researching the various ways that our current education system marginalizes students with disabilities.

In 2018, Marco became the only Independently elected candidate in San Diego County. Since 2018 he has served as a Trustee for the South Bay Union School District. Currently, Marco is the Board President for South Bay and has spearheaded various efforts, such as the implementation of Ethnic Studies, more equitable salaries for all workers, the educational rights of students with disabilities, and budget transparency. Marco is not registered with any political party, thus affording him the liberty to do what is right for kids without having to receive validation from a party apparatus.

Throughout the border region, Marco is known as an advocate for the most disenfranchised among us. He has participated in many organizing efforts to bring light to often unseen or forgotten social inequities. He believes that true change will not come from our political institutions. Rather, true change will come from a well-organized and mobilized mass of people.

In the Summer of 2021, Marco announced that he will be running for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction as the first working K-12 teacher to ever do so. The campaign is fundamentally grounded in the understanding that it is the people most engaged within education that must change education. Too often it is career politicians, disconnected millionaires and billionaires, or status-quo researchers that have the largest impact in public education, not those actually doing the day-to-day work within public education.

Marco Amaral’s political philosophy began in 2009, in the midst of the Great Recession. As an 18-year-old, Marco had enormous hope in the election of President Barack Obama. Marco’s parents, like millions of families throughout the country, lost their home due to the predatory lending practices of our financial system. However, it soon became clear that President Obama’s administration was more concerned with bailing out the big banks and the people that got us into a recession and less concerned with helping people like my parents. From that moment forward, Marco understood that neither the Republicans or Democrats actually cared about every day, working, people. Therefore, when it came to political parties, Marco has mainly been registered as a Non-Partisan since the age of 18.

Marco believes that true societal change always starts at the local community level. Yes, systemic change requires the involvement of whole systems. But that change must always be led by those at the grassroots level, not politicians and bureaucrats.

Jim Gibson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was schooled in the Philadelphia Public School System.  At age 16 Jim was unable to read simple sentences. and decided that if he was ever going to learn to read, he would have to do it on his own.  Jim spent that summer learning how to read. From there on out Jim's grades improved.   Two years later Jim applied to college and was accepted into a 4 year degree college. After graduating from college Jim joined the United States Marine Corps and became a captain. While in the Marine Corps Jim earned his Masters in Business Administration After leaving the Marine Corps he started a technology company that went National.   

At this time that Jim noticed that the quality of the education of his children was lacking from the public school system. Jim decidedhe should run for school board and see if he could correct some of the problems  at the school system.

When Jim decided to run for the local school board it became an interesting race because the Union was against Jim from the very beginning.  He was independent and did not accept any money from any special interest groups, especially the teachers union. With help from his family Jim won the election and came in number one. The radical teachers union has fought Jim for many many years. They have protested his house, they trashed his car, and even harassed his wife and his children.  Jim served over 20 years on the Vista Unified School District and won all the major votes because parents  and others in the community showed up and supported him.

Jim is running for Superintendent of Public Instruction because in the last 40 years that position has been controlled by the Teachers Union and outcomes have been dismal. 

Conservative

Pro-parent

Pro-taxpayer

Pro-life

For 20 years on the Vista School Board I have fought for parental rights and accountability to taxpayers.

California Needs Montessori Leadership! 

My children enjoyed free, Public Montessori Education at our neighborhood school in California for 7 years. This experience made me truly believe in the power of progressive, informed, Public Montessori Education. Now I want to help get California back on track, and inspire more teachers to innovate and lead, so every family has the opportunity to choose Montessori for their child.

I have been involved in Montessori and alternative education my entire life. My mother was a teacher, and I grew up in California surrounded by teachers. Eventually I found my way back into the classroom, after attending private Montessori schools and California Public Junior High and High School, I worked at a Montessori School for 7 years. Currently, I work with teachers and leaders in the field to publish books about Montessori Education and Special Education.

I am the proud father of a class of Class of 2021, California Public High School graduate, and the proud father to an 8^th grade California Public School student. My oldest daughter graduated from North Carolina Public High School. Recently, I was an assistant coach on the girls basketball team.

I know how to be supportive and I love working with families and teachers. I can't wait to be elected as the new State Superintendent of Public Instruction.