California Academics’ Union Endorses Billionaire Tom Steyer, Who Attended Elite Phillips Exeter Academy and Despatched Children to Non-public College

The union had backed disgraced California Democrat Eric Swalwell and now says Steyer has demonstrated a ‘depth of commitment to educator unions we expect’

California’s largest teachers’ union has endorsed Tom Steyer for California governor, throwing its weight behind a billionaire hedge fund mogul who opposes school choice and sent his four children to a cushy San Francisco private school after himself attending one of the nation’s top boarding schools, Phillips Exeter Academy.

The California Teachers Association endorsed Steyer on Wednesday, saying he has shown a “depth of commitment to educator unions we expect from all elected leaders.” It comes days after the 310,000-member union rescinded its support for now-former congressman Eric Swalwell following allegations that he raped and harassed multiple female staffers.

Public schools aren’t Steyer’s first choice either.

Steyer, who owns Farallon Capital, sent his four children to San Francisco University High School, a private school where tuition runs more than $62,000 per year. Steyer, for his part, attended Exeter in New Hampshire, one of the country’s top boarding schools. He graduated as valedictorian in 1975 and frequently visits the school—which boasts a $1.65 billion endowment and where tuition, room, and board costs nearly $72,000 for boarding students—including a stop in 2024 to promote his book on fighting the “climate war.”

Phillips Exeter noted that Steyer was a “Cilley boy,” meaning a former resident of the school’s Cilley Hall.

Steyer has opposed school-choice policies that would allow children similar opportunities, even as charter schools have outperformed public schools in his state. Steyer told the Washington Post in 2020, during his failed presidential bid, that he “does not support using public money for private or religious education.” He said that “having a quality public education is the only way we can have justice and mobility in our society.”

The endorsement is a major pickup for Steyer, who has poured $120 million of his fortune into his campaign. Steyer narrowly leads former congresswoman Katie Porter and Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, according to polls conducted after Swalwell dropped out of the race over the rape allegations.

Steyer opposes funding for private and charter schools even as he acknowledges failures in the state’s public education system. “Not every child in California is getting what they need to learn,” Steyer says on his campaign website. “As it stands, less than a third of eighth graders are proficient in reading and math, and we are in the middle of national rankings. We need to support our teachers and our schools so that they can provide the best education possible to kids.”

California’s charter schools have “outperformed” public schools, according to a 2023 Stanford study that compared test scores of public and charter school students in similar geographic areas.

While opposing funding for private and charter schools, Steyer has proposed providing “free education” for pre-K through community college and free “one-on-one tutoring” through closing “corporate tax loopholes.”

That could prove a tough haul for Steyer, should he win, after numerous corporations and investors have fled California over a proposed “billionaires tax” ballot initiative that would slap a 5 percent tax on fortunes larger than $1 billion. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page moved out of California last year over the proposed tax, as did Oracle founder Larry Ellison.

Steyer has expressed some “serious concerns” over the design of the proposal, though he supports the concept of levying hefty taxes on the state’s wealthy.

“If there’s an opportunity to tax wealthy people to fund health care and education, I’d vote for it all day long,” Steyer said. “At the end of the day, I’m always going to come down on the side of supporting working families, and if that includes making billionaires like me pay more taxes, then so be it.”