When choosing between Marshall Tuck and Tony Thurmond for California’s next schools chief, it’s worth remembering, “when the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.” Someone whose supporters are Donald Trump advisers is no friend of public school students and teachers.

Tuck and Thurmond are candidates for California superintendent of public instruction in the November election. Tuck’s biggest backers are deeply tied to Trump’s education privatization agenda. Trump’s education adviser Bill Evers, who loudly praised Trump’s cuts to federal education spending, has come out strongly in support of Tuck.

Thurmond, a Democratic Assemblyman from Richmond, is backed by the California Teachers Association, which has spent $3.2 million through independent expenditures to support his campaign.

Billionaire Arthur Rock, whose charter school chain is supported by the Trump administration and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, already has contributed $3 million of the $13.8 million raised by charter school advocates to elect Tuck. The California Charter School Association, which celebrated DeVos’ nomination, is Tuck’s biggest organizational endorser.

Tuck’s career as a schools executive is defined by the same cutting of corners and programs and deep animosity toward teachers that DeVos’ initiatives in education are known for.

Tuck was a Wall Street banker before taking over as the chief operating officer for the Green Dot charter school chain. In 2008, Tuck left Green Dot to become CEO of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a small group of public schools that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took over after his failed coup to take over all Los Angeles Unified schools.

Despite receiving millions in private funding, Partnership schools underperformed compared to the district’s schools with similar demographics during Tuck’s tenure in 2009. Tuck’s failed leadership resulted in landslide votes of “no confidence” from teachers at eight of 10 schools he oversaw.

Tuck claims to have significantly raised graduation rates at Partnership high schools, but the truth is that he just lowered the bar for students to graduate, rather than improving student learning.

While the graduation rate at Santee Education Complex increased from 56.34 percent in 2009-10 to 69.29 percent in 2012-13, what Tuck did to get these numbers was to lower standards. So it’s not surprising that readiness for college dropped from 61.9 percent to 21.9 percent under Tuck. At David Starr Jordan High School, a similar pattern emerges: graduation rates improved 12 percent between the 2009-10 and 2012-13 school years, but college readiness dropped from 63.7 percent to 18.6 percent.

At the biggest school in his district, Roosevelt Senior High, graduation rates fell from 67.43 percent in 2009-10 to 53.44 percent in 2012-13, while college readiness dropped from 52.8 percent to 21 percent.

Due to Tuck’s unreasonable and inflexible mandates, parents at Ritter Elementary School, together with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed a complaint in 2009 after Tuck cut dual language immersion programs. Ritter’s student population was 42 percent English learners at the time.

This year, Tuck was forced under pressure from Equality California, the largest state LGBT organization in the nation, to return a campaign contribution from the major backer of Proposition 8, which temporarily made same-sex marriage illegal in California in 2008.

California’s students need a schools chief who will stand up to Trump and DeVos’ agenda to defund public education and trample transgender students’ rights.

That candidate is Tony Thurmond.

Thurmond’s record of increasing funding for public education has earned him the support of California’s teachers, working families, the Democratic Party, and Sen. Kamala Harris.

Thurmond introduced legislation this year that the governor signed into law to expand bilingual education. He joined with Equality California to speak out against DeVos’ “failure to protect transgender public school students from discrimination, bullying and harassment.”

Tony Thurmond is the superintendent of public instruction we need to fight for all of California’s 6 million students.

Erika Jones is a 13-year elementary school teacher who was teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District during Marshall Tuck’s tenure as CEO of Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. She sits on the board of the California Teachers Association.