Trump, CA continue to clash over education

Let’s dive into some news affecting California education:

• Candidates for school chief: On Monday former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said he is running to be the next State Superintendent of Public Instruction after the current superintendent terms out in 2026. Rendon served in the Legislature as a Lakewood Democrat for 12 years. During his tenure as speaker, California doubled its K-12 funding and introduced transitional kindergarten. Rendon joins the race with at least three other candidates, including the chairperson of the Assembly’s education committee and the president of the Chino Valley school board, who pushed for policies requiring schools to notify parents if their child identifies as transgender. Read more from CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones.

• Battle over adult education: Last week California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state is suing President Donald Trump’s administration over its policy to ban adult students who do not have legal status from federally funded career technical education classes, English-language programs and high school equivalency courses. The U.S. Department of Education said it will begin enforcement starting Aug. 9. About 500,000 adult learners take classes in California. In addition to the likelihood that thousands of adults would be expelled, the memo also bans high school students without legal status from taking college-level courses in high school. Read more from CalMatters’ Adam Echelman.

• K-12 funding restored: The Trump administration said it plans to release, beginning Monday, the rest of the $6 billion in federal grants it initially froze in June to K-12 and adult schools. Congress set aside that money, including more than $800 million for California, to fund teacher professional development, after school programs and other services. The move follows the administration’s conditional release of some of the funds earlier this month. Said a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association: “We’re moving in the right direction. The funds never should have been held in the first place.” Read more from CalMatters’ Adam.

As the Texas Legislature continues its special session this week to redraw the state’s congressional districts, calls for a Democratic response in California are intensifying under Gov. Gavin Newsom, reports CalMatters’ Alexei Koseff.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the session after receiving pressure from Trump advisers to redistrict the state’s maps to help the GOP maintain its control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026’s midterm elections.

Newsom gathered with a group of Democratic legislators from Texas last week in Sacramento to reaffirm his plan to counteract the Lone State’s efforts by potentially redistricting California in a way that would benefit Democrats.

But there’s a rub: Though the Texas Legislature can redraw the state’s congressional maps, California relies on an independent redistricting commission protected by the state Constitution to do the same.

Some of Newsom’s options to work around this hurdle involves calling a special session and asking voters to overturn the commission — a prospect that Common Cause California, a good governance advocacy group, condemned as “dangerous.”

Read more here.

California homelessness service providers are in a bind after Trump issued an executive order last week that breaks away from years of federal and state precedent, writes CalMatters’ Marisa Kendall.

In many ways, Trump’s order to crackdown on homeless encampments is similar to the calls Newsom has been pushing local governments to follow: Both want to ban homeless people from sleeping outside, and both want to make it easier to force homeless people into treatment if they have severe mental illness or substance use disorders. 

But Trump also plans to eliminate federal support for services that use a “housing first” framework, which prioritizes giving homeless people a place to live, even if they use drugs or alcohol. The order also ends support for “harm reduction,” which focuses on preventing overdoses.

Both strategies are core tenets to California’s approach to homelessness, leaving some experts worried that Trump could accuse the state for failing to comply with his order and then cut funding.

Read more here.

California’s revamped low-carbon fuel standard took effect earlier this month, raising concerns it could drive up gas prices. CalMatters’ Alejandro Lazo and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on the controversial program that’s intended to reduce air pollution as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.