The 2026 Midterm Election: Public Education Is on the Ballot, Even When You Think It’s Not - Part I

And we're going to talk about something that is just at this point impossible to ignore, although I do meet people every day who don't know what's going on in public education across the country, the changing political landscape around public education.

And we want to be very clear, public education has always in some way been political.

Political in the sense that there has been national debates, policy debates at the national and state levels about curriculum, about standards, about, you know, teachers, teacher compensation.

Like there's all these issues that are inherently political.

What we're talking about is the fact that politics have literally entered the school board meetings and the classrooms in a way that is frankly unprecedented.

And this really came on during the pandemic.

It probably not something we'd like to keep talking about.

I think nobody wants to go back in time and re-experience that.

But the reality is that the pandemic shifted so many things in this country and public education is no different.

The way that public schools operate today, the politics and conversations are just markedly different.

And just to give you a little background on myself, I was on a school board in a very unique point in time.

First and foremost, I got elected in 2018.

That was like another lifetime.

I mean, that was so different how the school boards and across this country operated 2018, 2019.

Right, you know, a year and three months into my term.

COVID happened.

So I was on a board before COVID, during COVID, and the after effects of COVID.

And I have to tell you, it is wild how different things were pre and post.

So it's really important to realize that this is a newer thing.

This is something that has materialized in the last about six years now, which is crazy.

Because we were dealing with this in 21 and 22.

But this is still going.

It hasn't gone away and it's growing.

But the Trump administration, you know, aside from stuff happening at the local level, the Trump administration has made fundamental changes to public education a major policy priority.

And some of the things that you may have seen in your local school district or in your state, these are now becoming national policy positions and implementations.