Giving Compass' Take:

• Carolyn Phenicie explores the implications fo the 2018 midterm election for education reform efforts across the country. 

• How can funders help to bridge the gap between what families want for their children and the policies put forth by politicians? 

• Learn more about the results of the 2018 midterms and education. 

Education reform, at least its most contentious elements, didn’t have a great night.

In Arizona, nearly two-thirds of voters rejected a bid by lawmakers to provide education savings accounts to all students.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, a villain of teachers unions, lost his bid for a third term to state Superintendent Tony Evers, who wants to overturn limits on collective bargaining and the state’s voucher program.

In Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer won the governor’s contest pledging to “end the DeVos agenda in Michigan.”

But are those losses truly caused by voters rejecting specific education reform proposals, or are they the collateral damage of other political trends, including a repudiation of President Trump?

Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said that while very few people cited education as their top electoral concern, some of the results stand as a rejection of what he called “the hard-edged definitions of school reform.”

“Voters showed, and policymakers showed, a massive distaste for a lot of where school reform has brought us,” Hess said at a panel Wednesday.

An analysis he conducted this spring of gubernatorial primary candidates’ education platforms, in fact, showed that most concentrated on a far more bipartisan issue: career and technical education. Few mentioned testing or accountability, and almost none did so positively.

There was a movement away from the reforms that have been “bitter and hostile and frustrating,” he added. “Folks in the education space would be well served by taking a big deep breath.”

Others, however, cautioned not to be too myopic about the importance of education. All elections are local, particularly when it comes to education, and to the extent the midterms were about any larger national themes, they centered on issues like health care and immigration.

And, in fairness, education reform did have some wins in the midterms, like Jared Polis’s primary win for Colorado governor, when he fended off a union-backed candidate on his way to winning the general election.

Read the full article about the education reform midterm turnout by Carolyn Phenicie at The 74.