California’s education system is about to face a massive reality check. Whoever wins the governor’s race this fall will inherit a public school system that’s fundamentally different from what Gavin Newsom and State Superintendent Tony Thurmond have overseen for the past eight years. And honestly? It’s going to be rough.

Newsom’s era was defined by big spending and ambitious programs. The state expanded transitional kindergarten to 4-year-olds, lengthened school days, and launched career pathway programs. Those initiatives redefined what California K-12 education could look like. But here’s the thing: that era of throwing money at new programs is basically over.

The next governor is walking into a fiscal disaster. Enrollment is dropping hard, the state projects a 10% decline by 2033-34, with some LA County districts losing up to 20% of their students. Meanwhile, the percentage of students needing special education support has jumped from 13% to 15% since 2019, even though overall enrollment is shrinking. And here’s what’s really messed up: districts are footing an increasingly massive bill for special education. Their share of costs jumped from 51% in 2014 to 63% just last year.

Districts are basically screaming for help. David Roth, superintendent of Buckeye Union School District in El Dorado County, put it bluntly: “We don’t need new programs”. What they actually need is more base funding, the money that covers basic operating expenses. Forty districts have already formed the Raise the Base Coalition to push for exactly that. School board presidents from 10 Bay Area districts wrote to state leaders last month saying they need to “sound the alarm” about their fiscal crisis.

Newsom is proposing one structural change that could actually give the next governor more power: shifting control of the California Department of Education to a new commissioner appointed by the governor, rather than having it run by the elected state superintendent. It’s a common setup in other states, and it could make education policy less fractured.

Beyond just money issues, the next governor will inherit several complicated problems. There’s a pending lawsuit challenging how California distributes billions for school facility repairs, a system that currently favors wealthy districts. There’s also the AI question: should California require all students to be AI literate? And high schools are struggling with engagement; only 55% of students feel connected to their schools.

Maybe most importantly, the California School Boards Association is demanding real action on closing achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy students, and between racial and ethnic groups. That’s going to require focus and resources the next administration might not have.

The bottom line? The next governor inherits California’s ambitions, but not its budget. They’ll have to choose between maintaining existing programs and starting fresh ones, and that’s a choice nobody’s going to like.