It’s hard to imagine a worse outcome than former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon heading California’s Department of Education, but, sadly, it’s a possibility.
Recently the Los Angeles County Democrat announced his candidacy for Superintendent of Public Instruction to lead efforts to improve California’s struggling K-12 education system.
But throughout his time in the Legislature Rendon demonstrated a moral corruption and an anti-education streak suggesting he does not have the judgement or character required for the job.
In 2016 Rendon refused for months to punish his buddy, then-Assemblymember Roger Hernandez, who had been placed under a restraining order from his wife over domestic violence allegations.
Rendon dismissed the concerns of the Legislative Women’s Caucus that thought it was appropriate for Hernandez to be pulled from a powerful committee chairmanship. Hernandez was seen as a key ally in Rendon’s run for speaker and so Rendon stood by his man, delaying taking action until the situation became untenable.
Rendon’s indifference towards domestic violence alone should be enough to make anyone question his fitness for a post overseeing our children’s future. But it wasn’t just that.
During the pandemic the Legislature implemented a proxy voting system for people who were considered high risk for COVID. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks requested to vote by proxy after giving birth, but Rendon denied her because that wasn’t a good enough excuse. Wicks ended up staying on the floor until midnight with a newborn in her arms.
Rendon ended his time in office running a committee determined to figure out how the Legislature could make Californians more happy.
The effort was pointless and self-important and never once determined the Legislature could promote happiness by lowering the cost of living and staying out of people’s lives.
Instead, the committee recommended the state follow the example of Bhutan, a Himalayan country known for government-run efforts to promote happiness that stand in stark contrast to its long record of human rights violations. In fact, the tiny kingdom had spent years engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign that stripped one sixth of its population of citizenship and then booted it from the country.
Rendon also backed policies that hurt California families, largely at the request of special interest groups. Rendon first heavily-supported the infamous AB 5, which sought to gut the gig economy because unions saw it as competition. He called the gig economy “f—ing feudalism,” whatever that was supposed to mean.
Rendon ignored the fact that many gig workers needed their side jobs to survive California’s escalating cost of living (driven by Rendon in various ways) and sucked up to unions instead. Rendon also took a victory lap for a union-backed law, AB 1505, which sought to gut charter schools, which were also seen as union competition.
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It’s hard to overstate how poorly California’s students have done since Rendon became speaker in 2016. Since that time, student performance in the National Assessment of Education Progress has dropped to where only 28 percent of 8th graders are proficient in reading and only 26 percent are proficient in math.
Rendon also took a leading role in the state’s COVID response, which kept schools shut significantly longer than was appropriate and perpetuated depressingly-low student achievement.
Rendon certainly wasn’t the only one to blame for the state’s COVID response, but as speaker he did little to prioritize learning, even as evidence mounted that the student setbacks would be huge.
All of this is to say that Rendon would be a disaster as Superintendent of Public Instruction. The Department of Education needs more independence from unions, not another rubber stamp.
Someone needs to fight for students and families in the Department of Education, and Rendon is not that guy. Preserving the status quo, which is a downward trajectory, would be a disaster.
Matt Fleming is an opinion columnist for the Southern California News Group. You can follow him on X @Flemingwords or connect via email: flemingwords@gmail.com