What Happens on Education After the Midterms?
The midterm elections are exactly six weeks away, with implications not only for control of the U.S. House and Senate but also for 39 governorships and more than a dozen state legislatures. So it seems like a good time to take stock of what Democratic leaning thinkers are advocating for when it comes to K-12 education.
Within the last year, we’ve seen several sets of policy proposals put forth by those on the left and center-left. I review four of them here:1
- Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) (centrist think tank): “A New Compact for Educational Excellence,” (September, 2025) by Rachel Canter
- Third Way (centrist think tank): “The New Normal in K-12 Education,” (August 2026), by Ellie Cash
- Josh Cowen (left-leaning academic and former Democratic candidate for Congress): What Should the National Democratic Education Plan Really Look Like? and An Education Plan for Democratic Governors” (August 2026)2
- Jennifer Berkshire (progressive journalist): “Democrats Must Embrace a ‘Mom Populist’ Education Agenda,” published in The New Republic, (August 2026).
There are some areas of consensus but, mostly, a lot of variability. Overall, one can characterize PPI and Third Way as embracing traditional centrist reforms such as those advanced by Presidents Clinton and Obama albeit with a few twists, some of them involving newly emerging policy contexts, such as the science of reading and tech/AI. Cowen and Berkshire are much more in the union-friendly, status quo realm, although Berkshire is stridently so while Cowen is much more pragmatic. Here is a rundown:3
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