By John Fensterwald

Instead of just two candidates for state superintendent of public instruction, there will be at least five, including a young education consultant with some management experience similar to Marshall Tuck’s, a college instructor who can match Assemblyman Tony Thurmond’s past nonprofit experience counseling low-income students, and an oil industry geologist turned publisher of digital science materials who wants the state to abandon the Common Core standards.

The list of candidates — with two months to go before the March deadline for filing for office — raises the prospect that neither Tuck nor Thurmond, the presumptive leaders in the nonpartisan race, will get a majority of votes in the June primary, sending the race to a potentially expensive two-person runoff in November.

“The more crowded the field, the more likely a runoff will happen,” said Kevin Gordon, a Sacramento education consultant.

Source: More candidates for state superintendent raise odds of runoff in November | EdSource