They used to battle in CA elections. Now, they back the same candidate

Which of these is least likely?

Kendrick Lamar and Drake squashing their feud?

Giants fans and Dodgers fans sharing high-fives? 

Or California charter schools endorsing the same candidate for superintendent as the state’s largest teachers’ union?

If you remember the 2018 election, you’d probably vote for the pigs-flying scenario of the California Charter Schools Association and the California Teachers Association being on the same page in an election year. Back then, advocates for both sides shelled out tens of millions of dollars in the contest between union-supported Tony Thurmond and charter school-backed Marshall Tuck. Thurmond came out ahead. 

But this year, both associations are rallying behind candidate Richard Barrera: Four months after the teachers’ union announced its endorsement of the president of the San Diego Unified school board, the charter schools association this week said it’s backing Barrera too — a move Barrera told me “came as a bit of a surprise.”

He pointed to two attributes of San Diego schools that might explain how the usually competing groups came to support his candidacy. First, unlike in other regions, the politics surrounding San Diego school board races or other education issues did not typically pit “charters versus union.” In fact, the percentage of students attending charters grew while he was on the board. 

And second, the school board included charters when it distributed money to improve school facilities. That experience working on local facilities bonds established “a unique relationship between the charter and public schools that CCSA has told me that doesn’t exist in most places,” Barrera said.

In a statement, Gregory McGinity, the executive director of the charter association’s lobbying arm, said Barrera, “has shown that supporting educators and supporting high-quality charter public schools are not mutually exclusive.” 

But don’t expect both groups’ backing of Barrera to mean they will agree with each other in the future. CTA President David Goldberg told me that while the union didn’t endorse Barrera to build a coalition with charters, he didn’t find the charter association’s support of Barrera “shocking” either.

• Goldberg: “Sometimes even people who don’t see things the same way … we still want someone who is very capable running this department. That benefits all students.”

How many California students identify as Native American? Probably many more than state records show.

A loophole in how California tallies school demographics leads to widespread undercounting of Native Americans, a practice that one lawmaker aims to change with a new bill, writes CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones.

The measure would enable students who are Native American, but also identify as another race, to be counted as Native American in the state’s data collection system. Currently, students who identify as, say, Hispanic and Native American, are counted as solely Hispanic.

• Celestina Castillo, a director of a college learning center and Los Angeles resident: “If someone is Black, or Asian, or white, they’re counted that way. Why does it not count if someone is Native American? That’s not OK. It feels like erasure.”

Allowing that distinction would have likely boosted the number of Native American students counted in California last year from 24,822 to as much as 156,000, according to a bill analysis. If those students were identified, being Native American might not be seen as rare, bill proponents say. Native American students could also be entitled to cultural services and other programs that could help them in school.

Read more.

Calling it a “slap in the face,” some local Democratic Party leaders are slamming the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for endorsing a candidate in a key House race after initially saying it wouldn’t, reports CalMatters’ Maya C. Miller

Democrats hope to pick up California’s 22nd Congressional District during the 2026 midterm elections. The district, near Bakersfield, has a mostly Hispanic populace that voted for President Donald Trump in 2024.

Two Democrats are vying for the seat: Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains of Bakersfield who is one of the more moderate members of her party in the Legislature, and progressive newcomer Randy Villegas who is endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The California Democratic Party did not endorse either candidate in the race at its convention earlier this year. Christian Romo, chair of the Kern County Democratic Central Committee, said staff at the DCCC had told him multiple times that it would not weigh in unless there was a chance that two Republican candidates would advance under the state’s top-two primary system.

Romo and his counterparts in Tulare, Fresno and Kings counties all endorsed Villegas. He said that the DCCC’s late endorsement is an example of the national party trying to overpower state and local Democrats. 

• Romo: “They lied to all of us.”

Read more.