Lance Christensen

Lance Christensen ran for election for California Superintendent of Public Instruction. He lost in the general election on November 8, 2022.

Christensen completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Lance Christensen was born in Provo, Utah. He earned a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University in 2001 and a graduate degree from Pepperdine University School of Public Policy in 2004. His career experience includes working as the vice president of education policy & government affairs at the California Policy Center. He previously worked 15 years in the California State Senate as a consultant, legislative director, and chief of staff.^[1]

Elections

2022

General election

General election for California Superintendent of Public Instruction

Incumbent Tony Thurmond defeated Lance Christensen in the general election for California Superintendent of Public Instruction on November 8, 2022.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Tony Thurmond (Nonpartisan)	63.7	5,681,318
	Lance Christensen (Nonpartisan)	36.3	3,237,785

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 8,919,103
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for California Superintendent of Public Instruction

The following candidates ran in the primary for California Superintendent of Public Instruction on June 7, 2022.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Tony Thurmond (Nonpartisan)	45.9	2,881,684
✔	Lance Christensen (Nonpartisan)	11.9	745,003
	Ainye Long (Nonpartisan)	11.1	699,331
	George Yang (Nonpartisan)	11.1	694,073
	Marco Amaral (Nonpartisan)	8.7	547,389
	Jim Gibson (Nonpartisan)	7.5	468,078
	Joseph Campbell (Nonpartisan)	3.9	241,984

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 6,277,542
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Campaign finance

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

Lance Christensen completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Christensen's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Lance Christensen is a married and father of 5, seventh-generation Californians, all of whom are in public school.

For over 20 years, Lance has been very active in all aspects of the education system. After graduating from Brigham Young University (Utah) with a degree in English, Lance taught 4th grade as an educational assistant in Aurora Public Schools (Colorado). Lance applied both that experience and a master's degree at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy over the 15 years he served as a legislative consultant in the State Senate. While a finance budget analyst for the Department of Finance, Lance oversaw the budget of the newly formed Department of Juvenile Justice and helped develop Proposition 98 education funding for the department's schools so that students could receive an education keeping them out of the criminal justice system.

Lance has been active in many aspects of local education running for school board, sitting as the assistant chair of a district finance committee and serving as vice president of a high school booster club.

Recognized as an education policy and budget expert, he is the Vice President of Education Policy and Government Relations at California Policy Center, which advocates for educational opportunities and choice. He was also one of the primary architects of the recent school choice initiative that would allow parents to create education savings accounts for state funds to follow the students.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Lance is committed to adding parents into the education equation.
Reorient all decision-making in the office and department towards the goal of what’s good for the kids and parents and commit to performing a “Kids First” audit of the Education Code.
Protect the rights and autonomy of charter schools, private schools and home schools.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

California’s public education is broken and continues to get worse. One need not have kids in school to know that despite record spending on our schools, decades of bad education policies have brought us among the lowest test scores and literacy rates in the nation. Unless dramatic steps are taken now and someone advocates for parents and children at the top, California won’t be able to graduate students who can read, work in the 21st Century’s dynamic economy or participate as thoughtful and engaged citizens in our communities.

Lance has 20 years of experience as a father of 5, teacher, education policy expert, parent advocate, nonprofit executive and public finance specialist. He knows what it takes to produce an exceptional education and it doesn’t originate or end in the State Capitol.

He can bring the vision and leadership to re-establish California as the country’s best place to educate their children.

What qualities does this office possess that makes it a unique and important part of the state government and legal system?

The Superintendent of Public Instruction is a constitutional office and California’s top education official. The Superintendent is an important leader on broad and specific policy direction and budget priorities for the over 6 million Kindergarten through 12th-grade school-aged children in the state. While the Superintendent does not write the laws on education policy, he heads the Department of Education and advocates for wise policymaking and judicious implementation of regulations. He also oversees a multi-billion dollar administration that can either help or frustrate the needs of local school districts. “As the state's chief of public schools, provides education policy direction to local school districts, and works with the education community to improve academic performance. The Superintendent also serves as an ex-officio member of governing boards of the state's higher education system.”

Ultimately, the Superintendent needs to balance the needs of the state with the desires and passions of parents, who are ultimately responsible for the education of their children.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

My grandfather, Ross Palmer, was the most decent, God-fearing and hardworking family man I ever knew. There was no one better to have graced the earth than he in my estimation. I miss his wit and wisdom and incredible singing voice every day of my life.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

Visions of the Anointed, by Thomas Sowell

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Honesty, virtue, courage and a principled, constitutional approach to public policy regardless of the politics.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

Vision - I see a time when the Superintendent is a light to parents in California who just want what's best for their kids rather than being a hindrance to any success.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

The Superintendent of Public Instruction should be a leader who understands discretion and desires to keep parents, not special interests, All actions by the Superintendent should reflect this knowledge.

What legacy would you like to leave?

I would like California to be the top academic state in the nation again.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

I can remember watching the Challenger explode on live television at school in 1986. I was 10 at the time and devastated as I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

I worked in general maintenance as a 14-year-old at a new business complex that also housed a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado on weekends and over the summer. It required cleaning up the parking lots and empty retail offices, pulling weeds and performing other landscaping duties. I worked that job until I was 16 where I moved into being a stock boy at a national clothing store chain.

What is your favorite book? Why?

The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis. It seems to encapsulate every reason California has gone off the rails. A sober and thoughtful student of the book will see around the many devices used to produce a less than ideal state and fight back with better and more persuasive techniques for a virtuous and thriving society.

What responsibilities of this office do you personally consider the most important?

All major education decisions should be made by parents and ratified by local school boards. That said, the Superintendent of Public Instruction is a key decisionmaker, authorized in the state constitution and state statute to guide, direct and administer most state education policies. The office has far too long been used as a way to subvert local school districts and ultimately ignore the will of parents and their interest in providing the best education for their children.

California needs a light in the Superintendent's office, not a hammer. I intend on being that light for parents.

Are there any little-known powers or responsibilities held by this office that you believe more people should be aware of?

The California State Superintendent of Public Instruction is the only nonpartisan statewide constitutional office.

While the Superintendent is the executive officer of the California Department of Education, he is also an ex officio member of governing boards of the state’s higher education system.

Do you believe that it's beneficial for holders of this office to have previous experience in government or politics?

Yes, understanding how the state legislature funds the state's 944 neighborhood school districts, 58 boards of education, various non-public schools and other various programs is useful for prescribing the right fixes to the office. My 20 years in and around the legislature and public education qualify me for the job.

What kind of skills or expertise do you believe would be the most helpful for the holders of this office to possess?

I have 20 years of experience as a father of 5, teacher, education policy expert, parent advocate, nonprofit executive and public finance specialist. I know what it takes to produce an exceptional education and it doesn’t originate or end in the State Capitol.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

External links

Search Google News for this topic

Candidate

California Superintendent of Public Instruction

Personal

Footnotes

↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 4, 2022.

[bio-1] Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 4, 2022.

[1]

	v • e State of California Sacramento (capital)
Elections	What's on my ballot? \| Elections in 2025 \| How to vote \| How to run for office \| Ballot measures
Government	Who represents me? \| U.S. President \| U.S. Congress \| Federal courts \| State executives \| State legislature \| State and local courts \| Counties \| Cities \| School districts \| Public policy

Lance Christensen

Contents

Biography

Elections

2022

General election

General election for California Superintendent of Public Instruction

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for California Superintendent of Public Instruction

Campaign finance

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also

External links

Footnotes

Information about voting

2025 Elections

2026 Elections

2024 Election analysis

Trending

Public Policy

Information for candidates

Get Engaged

Services

Additional analysis

SITE NAVIGATION