While California Kids Fall Behind, the Newsoms Pocketed $3.7 Million Pushing Gender Films Into Schools

A Tale of Two Californias

There are two Californias right now. In one, nearly 70% of 11th graders cannot meet basic math standards, and more than half fail to read at grade level, according to the state’s own 2024–25 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) data. California ranked 37th nationally in 4th-grade reading on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress — an embarrassment for the nation’s wealthiest state.

In the other California, Governor Gavin Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, has quietly built a financial empire on the back of publicly funded schools — one that has funneled over $3.7 million into her pocket and her private companies while pushing politicized gender ideology films into classrooms across all 50 states.

This is not a conspiracy theory. It is documented in IRS filings, state education records, and public watchdog reports. And it raises a question every California parent — and every American taxpayer — deserves an answer to: Who was minding the store while the children fell behind?

The Setup: A Nonprofit That Writes Its Own Checks

Jennifer Siebel Newsom is the founder and chief creative officer of The Representation Project, a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to combat “intersectional gender stereotypes” and “harmful gender norms.” She also owns Girls Club Entertainment LLC, a for-profit production company through which she writes, directs, and produces documentary films.

The arrangement is straightforward — and lucrative. Girls Club Entertainment produces the films. The Representation Project then licenses those same films from her company for distribution to schools. And who gets paid on both ends? Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

IRS filings reviewed by the Daily Mail reveal that between 2012 and 2023, Siebel Newsom and her company collected over $3.7 million from the nonprofit. In recent years, the combined annual payout has reached approximately $300,000 — $150,000 in personal salary and another $150,000 paid directly to her LLC. That sum represents roughly 28–29% of the nonprofit’s total annual receipts, which range between $1 million and $1.7 million.

For context, charity watchdogs note that the median executive salary for a nonprofit of comparable size is just $31,945. Siebel Newsom’s combined compensation is nearly ten times that figure — a disparity that has drawn sharp criticism from nonprofit accountability organizations.

This is not how responsible stewardship of charitable funds works. This is a self-dealing financial loop, and it operated with the full knowledge of one of the most powerful political offices in America.

The Influence Play: When Your Husband Runs the State

Here is where fiscal accountability meets a serious question of governmental ethics.

In 2019, California’s State Board of Education — operating under Governor Gavin Newsom — issued health education guidance that specifically recommended Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s films for classroom use. That guidance was subsequently adopted by the California State Education Department, effectively giving her productions a taxpayer-endorsed seal of approval and opening the door to school districts across the country.

According to watchdog group Open The Books, the Representation Project’s curricula reached more than 2.6 million students across over 5,000 schools in all 50 states between 2011 and 2019. Schools paid licensing fees ranging from $49 to $599, generating nearly $1.5 million in licensing revenue for the organization — revenue that ultimately flowed back, in large part, to Siebel Newsom herself.

Governor Newsom appears in two of his wife’s films — Miss Representation and The Great American Lie — where he is portrayed as a champion of women’s rights. The accompanying school curricula prompt students to discuss his political philosophy and encourage them to vote for politicians who support a “care economy.” Taxpayer-funded classrooms, in other words, were being used as a campaign backdrop.

Americans for Public Trust, a nonpartisan government watchdog, put it bluntly: “Profiting from progressive indoctrination is easy when your husband is the governor — a blatant conflict of interest.”

What the Children Were Actually Watching

Parents have a right to know what their children were being shown during school hours — and the content raises legitimate concerns.

The films and their accompanying curricula, including The Mask You Live In, The Great American Lie, and Fair Play, promote progressive frameworks around gender identity and social privilege. The curriculum for The Mask You Live In introduces middle and high school students to the “genderbread person” — a model presenting biological sex, gender expression, gender identity, and sexual attraction as existing on separate spectrums. Kindergartners were introduced to lessons presenting genders beyond “boy” and “girl.”

In 2019, a California parent filed a formal complaint after his 12-year-old daughter’s class was shown the full, unedited version of The Mask You Live In, which contained sexually explicit imagery in a segment dealing with Internet pornography. The school acknowledged the incident, attributing it to a teacher error.

Open The Books founder Adam Andrzejewski reported that the films’ curricula contain “images lifted directly from pornographic websites, their URLs visible onscreen.” Students are also subjected to a “privilege walk” exercise in which they are required to publicly disclose personal information — race, sexuality, immigration status — and compare it with classmates. One film commentator tells students they need to “express shame and sorrow about who we are and what we’ve done” as Americans.

This is not education. It is political conditioning. And it was sold to school districts with a governor’s implicit endorsement.

The Donor Problem: Who Was Paying the Bills?

The financial entanglement does not end with the nonprofit’s internal accounting. The Representation Project received donations from major corporations — including AT&T, Comcast, Kaiser Permanente, and PG&E — all of which simultaneously held state contracts with California and made political contributions to Governor Newsom’s campaigns.

This is a textbook conflict of interest. Companies that need favorable regulatory treatment from a sitting governor are also funding that governor’s wife’s nonprofit. The Representation Project also operated for nearly a year out of compliance with California’s filing requirements for charitable organizations — a lapse only corrected after Fox News Digital reported on the issue.

These are not the hallmarks of a transparent, accountable public institution. They are the hallmarks of a political machine laundering ideology through the education system.

The Real Cost: California’s Children Left Behind

While the Newsoms were building this arrangement, California’s public schools were quietly collapsing under their watch.

The 2024–25 CAASPP results are stark:

• Only 47% of California students met English language arts standards — meaning more than half of the state’s children cannot read at grade level.
• Approximately 70% of 11th graders scored below standard in mathematics.
• California ranked 37th nationally in 4th-grade reading on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress.

These are not abstract statistics. They represent millions of young people — disproportionately from low-income and minority communities — who are being failed by an education system that prioritized ideological programming over academic fundamentals.

When classroom time, curriculum resources, and policy energy are spent licensing politically motivated films instead of improving literacy and numeracy instruction, children pay the price. The governor and his wife did not.

A Conservative Case for Accountability

The principles at stake here are not partisan — they are foundational. Parental rights demand that families know what their children are being taught, and that they have meaningful recourse when classrooms become political platforms. Fiscal accountability requires that nonprofit organizations — especially those receiving public endorsement and taxpayer-funded school contracts — operate transparently and without self-dealing. Limited government means that a sitting governor should not be in the business of steering public education dollars toward his wife’s production company.

And personal responsibility means that when public officials exploit their positions for private gain, they must be held to account — not shielded by progressive credentialism or institutional inertia.

The Newsoms have not been charged with any crime. But the documented record — the IRS filings, the education board recommendations, the donor overlap, the curriculum content — paints a picture of a power couple that used public office and charitable machinery to enrich themselves while millions of California children fell further and further behind.

Conclusion: Parents Deserve Better. Children Deserve More.

California deserves an education system that puts students first — not one that serves as a revenue stream for the governor’s household. The children sitting in those classrooms struggling to read, struggling to solve basic equations, deserve a government that measures its success by their outcomes, not by how effectively it can push a political agenda through a nonprofit loophole.

This story is not simply about Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s salary or Gavin Newsom’s political ambitions. It is about a governing class that has grown comfortable treating public institutions — schools, charities, regulatory bodies — as instruments of personal and ideological advancement. That comfort must be challenged.

Accountability starts with awareness. And awareness starts with stories like this one.

Call to Action

Don’t let this story disappear. Share this article with every parent, taxpayer, and concerned citizen you know. Demand that your local school board disclose every curriculum and film license it has purchased — and who profited from it. Contact your state representatives and ask them what standards govern the endorsement of educational materials by sitting officials’ family members.

California’s children are counting on adults who will fight for them. Be one of those adults.

Follow The Town Hall News for continued coverage of government accountability, parental rights, and education policy.

Sources: IRS Form 990 filings via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer; Daily Mail investigative report (March 2026); Fox News Digital investigation; Americans for Public Trust (August 2025); California CAASPP 2024–25 Assessment Data; National Assessment of Educational Progress 2024; Open The Books / Adam Andrzejewski.