Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has set himself up as the liberal foil to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), particularly when it comes to cultural issues such as race and sex education in public schools .

But Newsom has implicitly admitted that it is appropriate for states to make decisions about what is and what is not included in school curricula .

“Education reform and innovation doesn’t come with gag rules,” Newsom said last summer, commenting on Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law that forbids teachers from talking to children about sex in grades K-3.

“I believe education is under assault in ways I’ve never seen in my lifetime, [from] banning books, suppressing speech, to the othering of our students, teachers, parents,” Newsom also said.

The problem is that Newsom has made some big promises on education that he cannot keep, which now puts him in the position of prioritizing actual academics such as math and science over “ethnic studies.”

He signed legislation that mandated ethnic studies in California public schools, but he explicitly forbade schools from using an earlier version of the curriculum that was derided by Jewish advocacy groups as favoring Palestine and relying on antisemitic tropes. In other words, just like DeSantis, Newsom made a prudential and political decision about the appropriate ways to teach about controversial topics.

The budget also included a poison pill that would make it harder for districts to use the anti-Jewish, more leftist curriculum. The Algemeiner, a Jewish news site, reported recently that “it is extremely doubtful that the Legislature will be able to find, let alone decide to fund, a quarter billion dollars a year for ethnic studies courses that are quite likely to teach content the Legislature has explicitly rejected.”

This means that school districts will need to take on the costs themselves, but the lack of state funding could be used by leaders, including Newsom, to pressure schools to adopt the newest standards that have broader support.

The budget “ guardrails ” were put in the legislation to pressure schools not to use the curriculum that singled out Israel. The curriculum must not “reflect or promote, directly or indirectly, any bias, bigotry, or discrimination against any person or group of persons,” according to the text of the legislation.

This is common sense — which is probably why similar language is used in Florida’s Stop WOKE Act. That bill prohibits any “required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual to believes specified concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin.”

Florida teachers cannot teach that “an individual by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously” nor that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin.”

Ethnic studies is not a particularly necessary class for high schoolers, but Newsom was right to support amendments to the proposed curriculum.

He should acknowledge that Florida, and all states, are going to make decisions about what is and what is not taught based on time restrictions and good judgment about what is appropriate for children to learn. California can set its curriculum requirements — and so can Florida.

Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.