A big frustration with policy is that it can feel far removed from the real work of schooling. Why is that? What can we do about it? Such questions seem well worth digging into today, and I can’t think of anyone better to dig with than Andy Rotherham, the author of the Eduwonk blog, a big-time education consultant, and a former special assistant for education to President Bill Clinton. Andy and I occasionally try to make sense of the twists in education politics and policy. Today, we discuss what the midterms mean for education.
—Rick

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Rick: Well, that was a beatdown. Democrats blew right through the projections, posting hefty gains pretty much across the board. I mean, Democrats gained U.S. Senate seats in South Carolina, North Carolina, Kansas, and Texas, for heaven’s sake—beating President Donald Trump’s handpicked candidates in most of these. Democrats racked up massive gains in the U.S. House, gained governorships in states like Georgia and Ohio, picked up hundreds of seats in state legislative chambers, and emerge from Tuesday with enormous momentum.

This was a richly deserved repudiation of a Republican Party that’s been mute through the Trump administration’s tariffs, lawlessness, recklessness, and corruption. But will Democrats see the results as a rejection of Trumpism or an ideological mandate? For more than a decade, both parties have overinterpreted electoral wins as excuses to indulge their most extreme members. After all, Republicans won big in 2024 because Democrats overreached after 2020, and now Democrats have won big because of GOP overreach.

It’s not like Democrats ran on a particularly well-defined issue agenda, and the surprising wins were mostly earned by Democratic candidates who played to the middle in red states. In fact, somewhat remarkably, the public still regards the Democratic Party less positively than the GOP, according to one recent NBC News poll. Will Democrats shake off the most extreme demands of the base and instead focus on affordability, investigating Trump administration misconduct, reining in data centers and AI, and seeking workable compromises on hot-button cultural debates? If they do, how will the path they take color their approach to education? Curious for your take, my friend.

Andy: Well, it’s too soon to tell, and it will take time for the dust to settle. It was obviously a great night for Democrats—and, I’d argue, for the country—because it rejected a governing approach completely at odds with our values, regardless of your politics. That’s what this midterm was about: a referendum on Trump and MAGA politics.

However, there are signals Democrats would be wise to heed. Even in a blue wave, some spending measures struggled. For instance, many Virginia localities rejected an optional 1% sales tax for school construction despite a strong cycle for Democrats there. In California, the wealth tax is headed for defeat even as Democrats romped overall. That doesn’t mean voters don’t want the wealthy to pay more. In Colorado, better-structured tax reform and school spending measures appear to have passed, albeit narrowly.

Despite Colorado’s blue wave, voters there approved a measure requiring transgender athletes to play on school sports teams that align with their biological sex. Voters in Washington state and Nebraska did the same. Democratic candidates with moderate positions on transgender athletes won in places as diverse as Iowa and San Francisco despite howls from activists. In Arizona, a restroom ban passed even as voters there strongly rejected a measure to outlaw DEI initiatives. And the moderate Democratic Blue Dog Coalition in the House grew its ranks a lot more than the Democratic Socialists of America did. In general, moderate candidates were the heavier water in the Democratic wave. Some progressive superstars—like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan—won but underperformed the most recent polls. In Oregon, Tina Kotek won but also underperformed in the governor’s race.

Look, if history is any guide, expect overreach. Both parties tend to do that as soon as they get high on their own supply. But there is a different path. Voters want change, and that change doesn’t cleanly align with either party’s agenda. If Democrats can look forward rather than just left or right, they have an opportunity to establish a new, more effective politics that’s more durable than a rejection of Donald Trump. The wild careening we’ve experienced since 2010 isn’t healthy for our civic culture. The question is whether we’re in for more teenage driving or some adults at the wheel.

Rick: In Washington, congressional Democrats will be positioned to launch aggressive oversight of everything from the effort to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education to student lending to civil rights enforcement. In the states, Democratic governors will have an opportunity to show what their agenda looks like when it comes to early childhood education, school improvement, college costs, and more. What will you be looking for?

Andy: Democrats just won governorships in places like Texas, Georgia, and Iowa and won trifectas elsewhere. Counting is ongoing, but it looks like at least 600 state legislative seats will shift. Democrats also flipped seats at all levels of state government—attorneys general, secretaries of state, and elected finance roles.

That will impact education policy, and you can expect pushback on school choice in particular. The incoming governor in Texas, Gina Hinojosa, wants to roll back state takeovers of low-performing districts, the state’s STAAR test, and the new voucher program. Divided government might work in her favor. Iowa’s incoming governor, Rob Sand, is a staunch critic of the state’s education savings account program, and I’d expect action in Arizona, too, which is sort of the breadbasket of the choice movement right now and will be a test case. And yes, expect a focus on early childhood education and various efforts to expand access and quality.

Conversely, Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders had a good night in Arkansas despite a spirited Libertarian challenge, and she’s someone I’d keep an eye on around education, where she has a strong record, especially now that there’s a vacuum in Republican leadership. The election redrew the map in some consequential ways, so expect education to get some airtime going forward.

Rick: There will be changes in the leadership of the House and Senate education committees. At the moment, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) is in line to chair the House education committee and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) its Senate counterpart. Do you expect those two to wind up holding the gavel when all is said and done? Depending on how that comes out, what might it mean for the shape of federal education policy?

Andy: Scott is facing challenges and, to fend them off, will probably have to signal how long he intends to lead the panel or make some sort of deal. He’s pretty good on accountability, transparency, and civil rights, so reformers should hope he prevails. Here’s the interesting thing about Sanders: You didn’t hear Republican candidates saying that voting for Democrats meant Sanders would get more power or oversee health care in the Senate. That’s because he’s not some boogeyman to a lot of voters who toggle between left- and right-wing versions of populist economics in ways many comfortable elites in our sector fail to appreciate. Trump and Sanders are not that far apart on tariffs or favoring government involvement in various sectors of the economy.

So, I’d keep an eye on Sanders, given that some aspects of our politics right now are a lot less red-blue than they might seem at first glance. Internally, you hear questions about his ability to run the committee effectively, especially if Republicans have an aggressive ranking member in someone like Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), but people who see him as a fringe character are misreading our politics and missing the plot about what voters want at a time many are struggling to make ends meet and health care is an acute problem.

Rick: President Trump has been closely identified with some broadly popular agenda items in education, like school choice and policies that ban transgender students from participating in women’s sports. Given these outcomes and Trump’s abysmal polling, what might that mean for these issues? Should we expect Democrats to go after the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, which most congressional Democrats have pledged to eliminate? On gender, should we expect Democrats to pursue the policies in place under President Joe Biden or to moderate, perhaps partly due to the influence of all the new red-state officeholders?

Andy: I never understand why people think Trump is such a champion of school choice. In two terms, he’s personally done very little. He never talks about the tax credit even though it was in his signature tax bill. And this is a guy who isn’t reticent to talk about anything and everything. Calvin Coolidge he is not. His closing argument in this election was about the Reflecting Pool and Ohio Senator Jon Husted’s physique! Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) has a bill to repeal the tax credit that has 35 co-sponsors, and that number will surely go up after January. On that issue, gender issues, and other questions, expect a split between what Democrats need to do to consolidate the gains they just made and what various interest groups want to see fights over.

But don’t forget, we’re coming into a presidential campaign season, and that’s where the national conversation about these and other issues will really play out. If you want to see how the two parties redefine themselves, that’s the arena to watch. And keep an eye on independents, who are often weak partisans who will vote both ways. This election they shifted a lot from their 2024 stance and will matter again in 2028.

I hope that on school choice, gender, and a host of other seemingly contentious questions, people recognize that there are broad areas of common ground among the public. Seventy percent or more of Americans oppose discrimination against transgender individuals in employment, housing, and so forth, even as they think you have to balance inclusion with fairness and safety in sports. Majorities of American parents, especially from historically underserved populations, want more school choice even as they aren’t ideologically hostile to public schools. It’s our political class that can’t find its way past the loudest fringe voices on both sides. That’s one reason why, while this election was remarkable, the wild swings back and forth are not.

One thing that’s hard to miss. In the last two elections, 2024 and 2026, attacks that the other party cared more about “they/them” than about you did a lot of damage. In 2024, the attack was levied against the Democrats for their emphasis on social and cultural issues; in 2026, that same attack was wielded against Trump for prioritizing cronyism and his construction projects over the price of gas. There is a lesson there about what voters want.

Rick: Well said. While I disagree with much that the Democratic winners have suggested they’ll do, in education and elsewhere, I think this was a well-deserved beatdown and that the Republicans had this coming. It would be a terrific thing if the message received is that the public is sick and tired of self-serving, unserious leadership by charlatans and click-bait performance artists. If that’s the big takeaway, I’ll regard the results as a win for all of us.