Torlakson Wins Second Term as Head of California Schools in Tight Race

In a race that became shorthand for the fight over education policy and politics, incumbent state superintendent of public instruction Tom Torlakson won re-election -- beating back a challenge by Marshall Tuck.

Tuck conceded Wednesday morning, as Torlakson had 52.1 percent of the vote statewide.

Rarely has the race for state superintendent of public instruction been the most fascinating race to watch in California.  But never has so much money been spent on the race -- spending seen largely as a proxy war between self-styled reform advocates and teachers unions.

Torlakson and Tuck were deadlocked in public polls going in to Tuesday, though most voters surveyed said they were undecided. The job is a nonpartisan position, although both men are registered Democrats.

Torlakson, 65, was first elected superintendent in 2010 and before that served for 14 years in the Legislature and East Bay politics. Tuck, 41, was most recently a Los Angeles charter school leader and before that an investment banker.

A source of real debate in the race has been the future of California's teacher tenure laws. In June, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that the state's existing system of teacher tenure and due process violates the constitutional rights of children by leaving them with less effective teachers. The Vergara vs. California ruling is now on appeal, a decision Torlakson blasted as unfairly targeting teachers for the problems in some schools. Tuck, on the other hand, applauded the Vergara ruling as a step toward changes to the existing tenure rules.

The race also provided starkly different views on both the level of problems inside California's schools and what to do about those problems. Tuck argued that too many decisions over schools remain in the hands of officials in Sacramento. He also advocated for a new system of teacher evaluations, one linked to potentially higher salaries.

Torlakson, too, urged more local control, an advocate of the shift in funds and decision-making put in place in 2013 by Gov. Jerry Brown. He also has been a critic of federal education mandates.

The race would have been an intense one even without the Vergara ruling and the flood of outside money, but became the most closely watched of all statewide contests on Election Night. More than $20 million was spent on the race, most of it by outside independent groups. Tuck's backers included a number of wealthy activists; Torlakson's campaign was buoyed by the politically powerful California Teachers Association.