California State Superintendent of Public Instruction

State Superintendent of Public Instruction of California
California State Seal
Incumbent Tom Torlakson since January 3, 2011
Style	The Honorable
Term length	Four years, two term limit
Website	Executive Office, Department of Education

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) of California is the nonpartisan (originally partisan) elected executive officer of the California Department of Education. The SPI directs all functions of the Department of Education, executes policies set by the California State Board of Education, and also heads and chairs the Board. Superintendents serve four-year terms, serves as the state’s chief spokesperson for public schools, provides education policy and direction to local school districts, and also serve as an ex officio member of governing boards of the state’s higher education system. The current Superintendent of Public Instruction is Tom Torlakson.

Under Section 2 of Article 9 of the California Constitution, the Superintendent must be directly "elected by the qualified electors of the State at each gubernatorial election." But the State Board of Education is not directly elected, and its members are not appointed by the Superintendent. They are appointed by the Governor subject to the approval of the state Senate. Therefore, if the Governor's party has a majority in the Senate and the Governor has drastically different views on state education policy than the Superintendent, it is readily foreseeable that through board appointments, the Governor could conceivably put the Superintendent in the awkward position of chairing a board full of members whom he or she strongly disagrees with, and who in turn attempt to force him or her to direct the Department to implement policies contrary to strongly held personal views. The California Constitutional Revision Commission proposed that the Superintendent should be converted from an elected official into an appointed one, but the Commission's proposal was rejected by the state electorate in 1968.

List of California State Superintendents of Public Instruction

See also

• "A History of the California State Department of Education, 1900–1967"(undated)^[1]
• "The 'Department of Public Instruction' Before 1921" (undated)^[2]
• "The Jones Report and the Department of Education, 1921—1927" (undated)^[3]
• "Departmental Change and Growth Through the Years of Depression and War, 1927—1945" (undated)^[4]
• "The Strayer Report and the Reorganization of the Department, 1945-1963" (undated)^[5]
• "The State Superintendent of Public Instruction--A report on the history of the office in the State of California, and a review of the recent trends in the other 49 states" (1963)^[6]
• "The Little Reports and Reappraisal, 1963—1967" (1967)^[7]
• "The State of Our Schools - Who's in charge of education?" (Editorial), The San Francisco Chronicle, December 22, 2002, p. E4^[8]
• California Department of Education
• California State Board of Education

People

• G. Vernon Bennett, Los Angeles City Council member, 1935–49, ran for state superintendent of public instruction

References

External links

• Executive Office of the California Department of Education

California statewide elected officials
Governor Lieutenant Governor Attorney General Secretary of State Treasurer Controller Insurance Commissioner Superintendent of Public Instruction