Like many, Richard Barrera can remember a pivotal moment a teacher had in his life.
For him, it was in fifth grade at Rios Canyon Elementary School, when Mr. Cato pulled him aside for a chat.
“Richard, you’re a good student, and you’re going to do well for yourself in life if you stick with it and take your education seriously,” Barrera recalled his teacher saying.
But there’s more to life than just individual success, Barrera was told. “What are you going to contribute to your community? Are you going to use what you learn to benefit other people?”
Related: Chino Valley’s Sonja Shaw rides anger over COVID rules to bid for state superintendent
That conversation stuck with Barrera for decades — through his work with nonprofits focused on neighborhood improvement and affordable housing in low-income communities, through his time in the labor movement advocating for service providers in hospitals and home healthcare workers and through serving on the San Diego Unified School Board and in the California Department of Education.
And it’s an anecdote he readily recalls as he campaigns for California’s superintendent of public instruction.
A public school advocate and community organizer, Barrera, 59, oversees San Diego Unified, California’s second-largest school district, as the school board’s president. An elected member of the board since 2008, Barrera also serves as a senior advisor to current State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.
And come Nov. 3, Barrera is hoping to be Thurmond’s successor, should voters elect him over Republican Sonja Shaw, president of the right-leaning Chino Valley school board.
Barrera’s colleagues say his skills and experience would mean a win for education across the state, should he be elected this year. But while the position is technically nonpartisan, politics still permeate this election, and critics worry Barrera will only politicize the office further.
‘Let’s pull together as a community’
It’s Barrera’s upbringing — a first-generation Californian raised by two immigrant parents — that he said instilled in him the idea that public schools are “the key to our future.”
“I know it’s the public schools that have to deliver, if we’re going to honor the sacrifice that our families are making, because there’s no backup plan,” Barrera said. “I come at this from a perspective of how important quality public schools are to families that are making huge sacrifices so that their kids can be contributors to our communities.”
Despite having the longest tenure on the five-member San Diego Unified Board, he doesn’t label himself a career politician. A former secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, Barrera said his foray into politics was spurred on by a desire to improve neighborhood schools in primarily low-income communities, counter to the message given to parents at the time that they weren’t quality options.
“I just felt that that was missing the purpose of public education,” he said. “When we were growing up, you went down the street to the neighborhood school, and it was great. And for most of our parents, that’s still the case.
“But that means that we’ve got to put the resources into our neighborhood schools to support what our students need,” Barrera said, noting the diversity in San Diego. “Are we willing to concentrate our resources and our energy on the schools and on the students that need it most? That’s why I ran.”
Barrera said he got an immediate crash course in survival when he joined San Diego Unified, stepping into his role just as the board was attempting to limit “devastating cuts” while navigating the Great Recession, which began in 2007. Barrera said he spent that time focused on building a coalition of teachers, employees, parents, community organizations and business leaders in San Diego — not only to get through the financial crisis relatively unscathed, but to begin setting up the district so improvements could be made when the dust settled.
Because of this support and through his leadership, Barrera touted, San Diego voters have since passed multiple property tax increases to pay for school facility improvements. The most recent bond measure, approved by voters in 2022, brought the total tax revenue generated to $11.5 billion. By comparison, $8.5 billion in bonds were issued for K-12 facilities under California’s Proposition 2, which voters approved in 2024.
It’s investment in schools that Barrera called his proudest achievement in San Diego, which he said now has “state-of-the-art facilities” that send a message: “We actually believe in your kids.”
‘Power with’ versus ‘power over’
That ability to bring together those with a vested interest in education is why Barrera earned the California Teachers Association’s full-throated endorsement, said President David Goldberg.
The union’s backing of the pro-labor candidate is based on his record in San Diego and his vision of reinvesting in schools statewide, Goldberg said. It was not his politics, nor Shaw’s politics, that swayed the endorsement, Goldberg insisted.
“(Shaw) won’t be elected for good reason. It has nothing to do with politics … It’s because anytime she connects with people, it’s about ‘power over,’” he said. “Richard is about building ‘power with,’ with community and parents.”
One effort spearheaded by Barrera in San Diego that he hopes to expand statewide is the district’s development of affordable workforce housing. Gregg Robinson, president of the San Diego County Office of Education, said Barrera “single-handedly created” this initiative, creating income-restricted apartments for educators and school staff.
In January, the district announced that nearly 3,000 affordable housing units for educators were in the pipeline across six sites.
San Diego Unified Board Member Sabrina Bazzo said Barrera has an innate ability to bring together everyone at the table, not just those already on board. Bazzo herself was unsure about how the housing initiative would get off the ground, but Barrera’s leadership was key to turning that idea into reality, she said.
“At first I was thinking this was going to be a mess, trying to make sure that we try to take into account everything and make a fair assessment, but Richard really guided that process,” Bazzo said. “In the end, we really came out with a better decision-making process than it would have been if we had only done it without the interviews and discussions with (teachers and developers).”
Still, those who oppose Barrera’s candidacy aren’t convinced that a focus on the district’s workforce is more than a political ploy, said Amy Reichart, a parental rights activist and founder of Restore San Diego, a group that began in 2020 in opposition to extended school lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s Barrera whom Reichart said she sees as someone vying for the superintendent post to have more power, not to make improvements to the education system.
“Not only were schools unnecessarily kept shut longer, (but) a lot of that pressure was coming from the teachers union. And for me, my own personal opinion is there is no daylight between what Richard Barrera stands for and what the teachers union stands for,” she said.
Shaw, whom Reichart endorsed, has made a name for herself since taking up a position on the Chino Valley school board, where she pushes conservative policies, including parental notification about their children’s gender identity.
Reichart said Barrera in the statewide post would try to push “radical gender ideology” despite judicial rebuffs. Under Barrera’s leadership, she said, San Diego Unified has allowed students to change their name and gender without parental notification or consent. Resources on the district’s website include a “name and gender change form” giving students the option to have their preferred name and pronouns on report cards, diplomas, mail and/or teachers’ rosters.
When asked about culture war issues, Barrera said education administration starts with some basic values: “That we believe in all of our students, and that public schools should be safe, supportive environments where all of our students feel that they’re a part of a community, and that they belong there, and that they can thrive.”
“I think we start with that premise. And I think overwhelmingly, students, parents and educators believe in that premise. It’s the premise that makes us create a public school system to begin with.”
Elevating voices in education
Barrera wants to continue Thurmond’s work in the office, specifically when it comes to building coalitions to improve schools.
In a wide-ranging interview, Barrera made it clear he’s focused on the educators in those classrooms — what they need and want and think — but also that a priority as state superintendent would be on holistic approaches to education.
San Diego Unified had in the past looked to test scores as an “end-all-be-all measure of student success,” Barrera said. But after outcry from educators and parents, that approach shifted to again include arts and vocational training as well.
“The teachers stood up and said: ‘That’s the wrong way to go about things,’ but so did parents. And so the district was in this constant fight with the people closest to our kids, and we reversed that,” he said.
“We said, ‘No, we’re actually going to listen to our parents, to our educators,’ so we have rebuilt our arts and music program. We have invested heavily in career pathways for students at the high school level.”
It’s parental participation in education that the next superintendent should value above all else, said Lance Christensen, vice president of government affairs and education policy at the California Policy Center, a conservative Tustin-based think tank.
Christensen, who unsuccessfully ran for the position in 2022 and supports Shaw this go-round, posited that it’s been decades since a state superintendent has “actually understood that.”
“We have a lot of superintendents who are activists, who come into office who want to change everything, (while) forgetting that the state constitution and the state education code really rely heavily upon doing the basic and right things, and by taking care of educational needs as opposed to some sort of fadish indoctrination,” Christensen said.
“I think Richard Barrera is a tool of the system, another cog in the teachers union machine that has no desire to really improve education, but to protect the adult job system that we call public education,” he said.
While Barrera, a Democrat, came in second behind Shaw in the crowded 10-candidate primary election in June, the odds are likely in his favor.
That’s not only because the lion’s share of voters largely cast their ballots for a slew of Democrats running in the primary, but also in a historical sense: It’s been two decades since a Republican was elected to a statewide post in California, while 60 years have passed since a Republican was elected to the nonpartisan superintendent of public instruction post.
In addition, since 1982, no superintendent candidate has won without an endorsement from the California Teachers Association, the largest education union in the state.
“Richard’s skill set is frankly unmatched by anybody who’s ever run for this position,” said Goldberg, the union’s president.
The California Teachers Association contributed nearly $20,000 to his campaign earlier this year, and has spent $5 million since April in independent expenditures to support his campaign.
In all, Barrera’s campaign has raised more than $470,000, according to the latest campaign finance filings.
Historical precedent aside, there is one key difference in this year’s race that makes it unique: The role Barrera and Shaw are vying for is fundamentally different.
Starting in January, as part of the state budget deal reached in June, the Department of Education will no longer be under the state superintendent’s management, as the executive and administrative functions that have long been vested in that office will be shifted into a governor-appointed “education commissioner.” Instead, Barrera or Shaw will hold an office largely rooted in advocacy and be a “nonpartisan voice for the public interest,” according to the bill.
Disapproval of the change is something where Barrera and Shaw agree.
“Proponents of this measure claimed that their goal was to align everyone around a common set of goals for student achievement. Unfortunately, the rushed, behind-closed-doors nature of the process has done precisely the opposite,” Barrera said at the time of the change.
Despite the candidates’ feelings about the change, Robinson said he believes Barrera is primed to take on what is essentially a new role.
“Ironically, while the intense power of that office has decreased dramatically, the extent of that power has grown,” the San Diego official said. “His formal power will be decreased, but his sheer intellectual stature and his ability to work and create coalitions and to put the needs of these kids first make him an ideal person in an unideal situation.”
Above all, the ability such a position gives to pull people together is what excites Barrera the most, he said.
“I do feel, being in my 18th year on a local school board, that often policy is made without a lot of listening to what actually makes sense to people on the ground. I want to elevate the voice of people who are doing the work locally and have that influence on policy decisions in Sacramento.”