Education freedom expected to play a major role in the 2026 midterm elections

• Polling conducted earlier this year shows a majority of Americans support education freedom, open enrollment, true parent accountability measures, and direct funding models that give families greater control and flexibility to provide the best education possible for their children.

Lawmakers in Mississippi are not the only ones considering ways to expand education freedom and provide more parental flexibility. There is a growing national trend away from the traditional zip-code based school model.

The issue looks to be a key talking point during the 2026 midterms as candidates run for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.

Polling conducted earlier this year shows a majority of Americans support education freedom, open enrollment, true parent accountability measures, and direct funding models that give families greater control and flexibility to provide the best education possible for their children.

The poll, conducted by YouGov for yes. every kid. foundation, found that parents prefer to have a say in how their child receives an education. The data included results from a national education poll, 14 state surveys, three national surveys, and 60 interviews with parents that took place during 2025.

Scott Foster, Director of Education Marketplace and Insights for yes. every kid. foundation, said education freedom is expected to play a major role in the upcoming midterms. 

“Education freedom is a winning issue,” Foster said during a virtual release of the results this week. “There is no other issue out there that polls as well as this one in my 15 plus years of conducting polling with multiple firms and across probably a 100 different issues now. I have never seen an issue test this well, test this consistently and test this broadly.”

As the country moves into the 2026 midterms, it is anticipated that a candidate’s stance on education freedom will be important to garnering votes in key areas. 

“We found that 54 percent of registered voters, including 59 percent of K-12 parents, said that education would be an important factor in their decision at the ballot box next year,” Foster explained. 

He did note that the policies and political standings within each state play roles in a voter’s decision, with education freedom scoring high. Those answering the polls were asked their stance on education freedom in varying ways about 26 times.

“Now, of course, the questions vary depending on the state and the corresponding races and the policies in the state, but every time we ask that, all 26 times voters said they’d be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports giving families more education freedom than vote against,” Foster said. “And the real kicker here, the most notable thing is that the pro-education freedom’s side won handily each time. In all but one of the times we asked it, so 25 times, the net advantage for the pro-education freedom side was double digits.”

Foster went on to describe how support of universal access to public schools crosses political party lines as well as receives significant backing from minority populations. The results show that 64 percent of the total respondents indicated they support universal access to public schools, with 24 percent in opposition. 

He did point out that Republican support on the topic grew by about 6 points over the year, while Democrat support decreased by nearly 5 points in that same period. 

Education Savings Accounts are also seeing increased support, in part due to their popularity and the passage of legislation across several states. Tax credits for family education expenses also polled favorably.

“We found that about 6 in 10 Americans support education tax credits, while 24 percent oppose and 18 percent are unsure,” Foster added. 

Parents indicated that when they made the switch from public school to private school, the ability to provide a more customized educational experience for their children was the second most important reason, with the child’s safety being rated as the top concern. 

“They know that the benefits of a more tailored education go far beyond what their child was previously getting,” Foster added. 

Public education has gained a reputation for being inflexible, at times failing to meet the individual needs of a child. The poll results showed only 36 percent of respondents believed the public education system was customizable. Respondents indicated their desire for the public system to be more customizable to better meet a child’s individual educational needs, resulting in 7 of 10 respondents stating they believe every child benefits from a more flexible education. 

“This is a huge deficit between the reality of the current education landscape today, and what people and families actually want and desire in education and people aren’t OK with this. And it’s driving their support for education freedom,” Foster said. 

Another factor driving support for freedom in education is the want for accountability. 

“When schools aren’t accountable, when they aren’t responsive… when families can’t hold them responsible for actions or their outcomes nothing ever changes, nothing ever improves,” Foster said. “You see declining scores, you see schools graduating kids who aren’t proficient in reading. You see colleges like Harvard offering remedial math.”

Two-thirds of parents indicated in the poll results that schools should be held accountable to the families they serve, not bureaucrats or school and district administrators. 

Those results also crossed party lines, with 89 percent of Republicans, 72 percent of Independents and 67 percent of Democrats agreeing that schools should be accountable to families.

In addition, universal testing in education was found to be a poor indicator of accountability due to the lack of an avenue to hold teachers and administrators accountable for low test scores. 

“We’re just simply reinforcing a top-down one size fits all system of control and compliance that ignores families,” Foster said of testing. “It measures a lot, but it doesn’t actually fix things and worst of all it leaves our kids woefully unprepared for life.”

As a result, 61 percent of Americans agreed they should be able to take their designated funding to the school of their choice. 

Federal control over the spending of federal education dollars also did not poll well, both last year and this year. Last year, only 28 percent of the respondents agreed that the federal government should decide how federal money is spent. This year, the poll dug into the reasons of that viewpoint, with a majority (56 percent) indicating they do not trust the federal government to make the correct spending decisions for the K-12 education system. Most of the respondents (59 percent) said those decisions should be done at the state level. 

“So, when you look at the data from last year and the data this year, I think it’s pretty clear that Americans across the country believe that K-12 decisions should be made at the local level, not in Washington,” Foster said. “And I think it’s a major reason why that when things are framed appropriately, when it is made clear that funding won’t be eliminated, that it will just be block granted to states, and certain responsibilities will be merged with other agencies, a majority of voters across the country support responsible reforms that close the U.S. Department of Education and return authority back to families and states.”

Foster did say that Independents and Democrats did not fully agree with that sentiment, with their support coming in below the 50 percent threshold. 

“The opposition to close the department is a little bit of whack-a-mole because it’s whatever voters think the department does, understandably,” Foster described. “So, most don’t know what the department does. But once you kind of explain how the whole plan to dismantle it would work support shifts from, I think our original number was like 31 percent support [for dismantling the department], and it almost flips completely to… 30 percent opposed, 56 percent support.”

It was noted that most respondents who participated in the focus groups did not fully understand the federal government’s role in education in the U.S. or the amount of funding it provides.

Within Mississippi, a majority of the funding to public schools comes from a combination of local and state funding. Last fiscal year, the state provided a base student cost of $6,695 per student, with additional state funding provided to districts based on certain weights attributed to categories including low income, special education, the sparsity of homes within each school district, and other factors. Local funding decisions are decided at the municipal or county level, with a community’s tax base playing a major factor.