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Our verdict

LiberalMind endorses Sonja Shaw

Election Day is November 3. Read this first, because it governs everything below: the Superintendent of Public Instruction is an officially nonpartisan office in California. No party label appears beside either name on the ballot — none appears in this piece either, and our call is made entirely on the two records and the two sets of positions, because that is all the ballot itself offers a voter. Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified school board, finished first in the June primary. Richard Barrera, president of the San Diego Unified school board, finished second. And the job itself is changing under the winner: under a 2026 education-reform law, beginning January 2027 the elected superintendent becomes an independent public advocate and evaluator while a governor-appointed director runs the Department of Education's day-to-day operations. LiberalMind endorses Sonja Shaw. Read the records, and see why.

The race

Incumbent Tony Thurmond is leaving — he ran for governor in 2026 and lost the June primary, and is also described as termed out; the seat is open either way. Shaw finished first and Barrera second in the June 2 primary (AP, via EdSource), in a ten-candidate field. Primary percentages conflict by count stage and are printed as a range, never a single figure: Shaw roughly 22.6%–24.9%, Barrera roughly 18.9%–20.3% across the count-stage and wire figures located; certified finals are a record gap. No ratings exist for this office and no public general-election polling was located; Shaw's first-place primary finish is the only quantitative evidence found.

The money, printed as a named compilation, never averaged (Transparency USA, from candidate filings, cumulative through its last update): Barrera — contributions $798,196.67, loans $20,000, expenditures $677,988.42. Shaw — contributions $642,225.77, expenditures $620,825.50. Both are listed "On the Ballot" in that compilation. (For scale only: an eliminated primary candidate, Al Muratsuchi, raised a comparable $793,330.50 — context, from the same source.)

Sonja Shaw — the Chino Valley board president

Record: Chino Valley Unified school board member since 2022, and its president. She rose from pandemic-era parent activism and built a national profile in the parental-rights movement, associated with Chino Valley's fights over transgender-student policies, classroom displays and library books. She announced for superintendent in March 2025 and did not seek re-election to the local board. In September 2026, leaked audio of a Los Angeles teachers-union leader calling Shaw a "real threat" became a campaign episode; her response: "Parents deserve a seat at the table."

Pros: Her record is the position: a sitting local board president who took the parental-rights side of the live fights in her own district — student policies, classroom displays, library books — and won the primary's first place doing it statewide. For an office that becomes, in January 2027, an independent public advocate, a candidate whose entire public record is advocacy from the parent side of the table is a structural fit.

Cons: Her service is one local board, held since 2022 — she has never run anything at state scale, and the evaluator half of the restructured office (auditing a department she will not run) is untested in her file. Her national profile was built in contested fights; voters who opposed her district's positions will find the same positions here, undiluted.

The flaw, plainly: No flaw proven in service was sourced against her in this research. The limit of her file is scale — a local record offered for a state office — which is a watch item, not a proven defect.

Richard Barrera — the San Diego board president

Record: San Diego Unified board member since 2008 — eighteen years, five as president — in the state's second-largest district (roughly 103,000 students). Since 2024 he has also been a senior adviser to Superintendent Thurmond at the Department of Education, working on immigrant-student protection, staff housing and chronic absenteeism. Earlier: secretary-treasurer of the San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council. UCSD bachelor's, Harvard MPP. He is endorsed by Thurmond, and by the California Teachers Association, his largest backer.

Pros: The deepest education-administration record in the race by far: eighteen years governing a very large district, plus two years inside the state department he would now evaluate. If the restructured office rewards institutional knowledge, his file is built for it.

Cons: His record is the institution's record. Eighteen years on a big-district board, a labor-council leadership post, an adviser's chair under the outgoing superintendent, and the teachers association as both endorser and largest backer — every anchor in his file ties him to the system the restructured office is supposed to independently evaluate. An advocate-evaluator drawn from inside the evaluated institution, sponsored by its largest organized interest, starts the job with the independence question already priced in.

The flaw, plainly: Not conduct — position. No personal-conduct flaw was sourced against him. The flaw is structural and documented: he is the continuity candidate of the department and the union that dominates it, offered for an office whose new design is independence from exactly that.

OUR CALL

LiberalMind endorses Sonja Shaw.

No labels were consulted in making this call, because the ballot prints none; the records decide it. Barrera's file is longer and, on administration alone, stronger — and it points the wrong way for this office as redesigned: board, labor council, the outgoing superintendent's own adviser, the teachers association's endorsed and largest-backed candidate. The January 2027 superintendent is an advocate and evaluator standing outside the department, and Shaw is the only candidate whose record was built standing outside it — a board president whose fights were fought for parents' seat at the table against the system's defaults. Her limit is scale, printed above, and it is a watch item rather than a proven flaw. On records and positions alone, the outsider fits the redesigned office, and the insider is the institution the office must now check.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 7, 2026

Winner: Richard Barrera (Democratic) — called by the Associated Press. This result was appended on November 7, 2026 (results wave 5); the original article above is unchanged, exactly as published before Election Day.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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