The results of Tuesday’s midterm elections will reverberate across K-12 education for years to come—including fresh opportunities for increased school investments alongside new funding constraints in some places.
Voters in several states endorsed measures to direct more statewide public revenue to schools, and to impose higher taxes on wealthy residents in order to pay for K-12 education and other priorities.
However, school districts in several Republican-led states will have to contend with new restrictions on property tax collections. Districts in several states struggled to secure voter support for new taxes. A high-profile measure to invest in universal free school meals for K-12 students in North Dakota fell just shy of passage.
Some electoral consequences for school funding will depend on how lawmakers take advantage of new political conditions.
Democrats gained full control of state governments—or are on track to do so—in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Unified control could bode well there for school funding increases and new restrictions on private school choice investments.
Democrats are also on track to break unilateral Republican control in Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Texas. They also toppled Republican legislative chamber supermajorities in Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, and South Carolina. These changes can alter the political dynamics for school funding and budget priorities.
Education Week assembled this guide to the midterm election results using states’ unofficial election tallies for 32 ballot questions in 20 states. Some vote tallies and percentages may fluctuate as states continue their counts.
Here’s a look at how school funding fared nationwide.
Property taxes
Voters in several states approved efforts to limit property tax collections—imposing new funding constraints for schools.
In Florida, 62% of voters opted for new limits on property tax increases that will leave direct funding for schools untouched, but will hamper local governments’ ability to fund after-school programs, library services, and child care.
In Louisiana, voters approved raising the income cap for residents who qualify for existing property tax freezes, and giving municipalities more flexibility to lower property tax burdens for senior citizens.
And in North Carolina, more than 6 in 10 voters supported measures to impose new limits on property tax increases and cap the state income tax rate at 3.5%.
Property tax limits weren’t universally popular, though. In Oklahoma, 54% of voters rejected an initiative that would have limited property tax increases. And in Wyoming, nearly 57% of voters dismissed a proposal that would have slashed property taxes for most residents by 50%.
A slim majority of Arkansas voters also rejected a measure that allows the state to offer tax breaks to businesses to stimulate economic growth. Some school districts worried that those new “tax incentive districts” would depress their future revenue.
Wealth taxes
Proposals to use higher taxes on wealthy residents to generate state revenue garnered strong support in two states—while in California, voters rejected a one-time tax on billionaires after a massive spending campaign from the measure’s ultra-wealthy opponents.
Nearly 58% of voters in Washington state rejected a ballot measure that would have repealed the “millionaire tax” state lawmakers approved earlier this year. Starting in 2028, residents in Washington will owe 9.9% in income taxes on earnings over $1 million—unless the state supreme court sides with the plaintiffs behind an ongoing court challenge to the legislation.
In Colorado, a proposal for a new “graduated income tax” appears to have eked out a narrow victory, setting up a potential windfall worth billions of dollars for schools and other public services in the coming years.
But in California, the ballot proposition for a one-time tax on the state’s roughly 250 billionaire residents is headed for defeat—and a separate proposition that would make it harder for the state to impose similar taxes in the future is headed for passage. Opponents of the billionaire tax spent an unprecedented $290 million on their campaign against it.
Statewide investments
More than 72% of Minnesota voters approved a ballot measure that will direct revenue from a permanent state fund to K-12 schools as an ongoing funding source.
Two-thirds of New Mexico’s voters passed a statewide measure to invest $19 million in bonds to pay for library upgrades across the state, including in public schools.
And in Colorado, more than 55% of voters endorsed using tax collections beyond a state cap to boost school funding rather than offer refunds to taxpayers.
But the news was less rosy for proponents of a North Dakota proposal to add free school meals for all K-12 students to the state constitution. That measure failed, with only 44% of voters in support; lawmakers have already begun talking about advancing a similar proposal through legislation next year.
Local funding
Voters in several states appeared reluctant to green-light tax increases that would benefit schools—and elsewhere, eager to restrict districts’ ability to raise taxes.
Virginia lawmakers earlier this year gave localities the option to put before voters a new 1% sales tax to fund school construction and modernization. Forty-seven localities put the measure on the ballot; voters in only 15 of those localities approved it.
Similarly, in Ohio, 39 school districts asked voters for permission to levy a new income tax to make up for revenue they’re losing in the wake of property tax cuts state lawmakers have implemented in recent years. Just five of those 39 measures passed.
In Minnesota, despite widespread support for the new statewide funding source for education, local voters rejected more than half of the 63 district-level requests to support higher taxes for school districts.
And in New Hampshire, voters in more than 110 cities and towns approved a measure that appeared on every ballot in the state this year, limiting school districts’ property tax increases to the rate of inflation plus the value of new construction.
Proposals to maintain or increase existing school taxes fared better overall.
In Indiana, voters approved referenda for property tax increases in 27 of 39 districts that proposed them. Fifty-one of 63 Ohio school districts that sought voter approval to maintain existing property tax rates got what they asked for, as did 10 of 18 Ohio school districts that asked voters to levy additional property taxes. And in Wisconsin, 45 of 79 school district referenda for property tax increases to cover operating expense gaps passed.
Results for high-value school bonds varied from place to place. The Cypress-Fairbanks district in Texas and the Dearborn district in Michigan each had bond packages worth more than $1 billion on their respective ballots. The Dearborn measure passed with more than two-thirds of voters in support; the Cypress-Fairbanks measures failed, securing support from less than 40% of voters.
Meanwhile, many Arizona school district leaders likely breathed a sigh of relief after 51% of voters rejected a measure that would have required school districts to spend 60% of their operating budgets on “direct instructional expenses,” defined as spending on teacher and teacher aide salaries, field trips, and classroom supplies but not major line items like special education services and instructional coaches. Many districts that would have been affected currently spend a smaller share of their annual budgets on those expenses.
Federal funding
With at least 54 U.S. Senate seats and more than 250 House seats, Democrats secured the largest majorities either party has had in Congress since 2011.
That bodes well for advocates of crucial federal formula funding streams for schools, like Title I for low-income students and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for students with disabilities. Democrats in recent years have pushed to increase annual allocations for those programs, which have remained largely stagnant in the 2020s despite soaring inflation.
The shakeup of committee leadership, meanwhile, could have ramifications for the appropriations process. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, lost her bid for a sixth term, which means her chamber’s appropriations committee is in the market for a new top Republican.
In the meantime, Democrats will gain control of both chambers’ appropriations committees beginning in January. Depending on how the next few weeks shake out, those lawmakers might oversee the push to finalize current-year federal appropriations, which affect school funding for the 2027-28 school year.
Lawmakers in the current Congress currently have until Dec. 11 to either decide on a fiscal 2027 federal budget, extend current funding levels, or force a federal government shutdown.
