Voters need journalists’ help understanding understanding state-level private school choice, graduation requirements, and school construction funding measures. Part of a new series from The Grade.
By Christine Vestal
On Election Day 2024, voters will be asked to weigh in on more than a dozen statewide education-related ballot questions.
That number balloons when you add thousands of municipal and county measures on local ballots that affect K-12 schools, such as bond issues and property tax hikes.
And that’s after voters have plowed through lists of candidates for president, governor, Congress, the statehouse, state courts, and a long list of other state and local offices some may not have known existed.
Voters need help.
That’s where education journalists come in.
To make a difference, pre-election day ballot measure stories need to translate jargon-filled policy measures into simple, concrete language and lay out the back story — why it’s on the ballot, who’s for and against it, what problem it aims to solve, and how its passage will affect the daily lives of people in the community.
If the measure has been controversial, with heavily advertised claims on both sides, voters are more likely to at least know the ballot question exists. But in an era of rampant disinformation, readers need more help than ever from education reporters to determine the validity of those claims. It’s no easy feat.
Giving readers origin stories, outcomes in other places, and views of those most directly affected will help you avoid superficial coverage.
Giving readers origin stories, outcomes in other places, and views of those most directly affected will help you avoid superficial coverage.
BALLOT INITIATIVES 101
Since the beginning of the 20th century when voters worried that the government was too heavily influenced by wealthy robber barons, ballot initiatives have become a check on governments that fail to address the needs of voters.
In general, citizen initiatives tend to be progressive when the government in power is conservative and conservative when the government is liberal.
According to the Initiative and Referendum Institute, voters in the 26 states that allow the citizen initiative process have placed approximately 2,978 statewide initiatives or referendums on the ballot and adopted 1,201 since 1904, when the first citizen measure appeared on the ballot in Oregon.
In recent history, many of the nation’s most contentious social issues, including same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization, abortion rights, and gun restrictions have been settled by statewide citizen ballot measures — not Congress or state legislatures.
2024 INITIATIVES
This year, 160 different statewide measures have been certified for the ballot in 41 states, some by lawmakers and some by citizens, according to Ballotpedia, which has been tracking ballot measures since 2006.
In addition to abortion rights, major issues trending across statewide ballot initiatives in 2024 include noncitizen voting, ranked choice voting, wages, drug use policy, changes to the ballot initiative process, same-sex marriage, and school choice, defined as programs that use taxpayer money to pay for homeschooling and private schools.
Major issues trending across statewide ballot initiatives in 2024 include school choice.
VAGUE, UNHELPFUL INFORMATION
Official voter guides published by local nonprofits and election commissions can be helpful, but many are just as confusing as the ballot measures themselves. They often contain arcane legal terms and policy jargon. And even when a measure is clearly written, the motivation for the initiative and its intended impact on the community are not spelled out.
“The press plays an incredibly important role in informing voters what’s on the ballot,” says Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a progressive nonprofit that assists in creating effective ballot initiatives.
“What we know, is that for a lot of people, their local and regional reporters are trusted and how they report can sway whether voters will support, vote against, or skip a ballot measure altogether,” Figueredo said.
“Because we’re in such a hyper-partisan time, with elected officials and state agencies creating really biased and misinformed language about ballot measures, the media plays a more important role than ever before,” she said.
For 2024, NCSL,OpenSecrets, and Ballotpedia all list different numbers of initiatives and slightly different lists of state education measures, due to different research methods.
VAGUE, UNHELPFUL INFORMATION
Official voter guides published by local nonprofits and election commissions can be helpful, but many are just as confusing as the ballot measures themselves. They often contain arcane legal terms and policy jargon. And even when a measure is clearly written, the motivation for the initiative and its intended impact on the community are not spelled out.
“The press plays an incredibly important role in informing voters what’s on the ballot,” says Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a progressive nonprofit that assists in creating effective ballot initiatives.
“What we know, is that for a lot of people, their local and regional reporters are trusted and how they report can sway whether voters will support, vote against, or skip a ballot measure altogether,” Figueredo said.
“Because we’re in such a hyper-partisan time, with elected officials and state agencies creating really biased and misinformed language about ballot measures, the media plays a more important role than ever before,” she said.
For 2024, NCSL,OpenSecrets, and Ballotpedia all list different numbers of initiatives and slightly different lists of state education measures, due to different research methods.
“The first thing you need to do is figure out what the title and blurb really mean.” – Elaine Povich
VOTER CUES: SUPPORTERS & ORIGIN STORIES
Even when they understand the motivations and consequences of a ballot measure, voters typically have a hard time deciding whether they’re for or against it, because there are no obvious partisan tags assigned to ballot questions. Voters who tend to vote by political party can be flummoxed by ballot measures and leave them blank.
To figure out where they stand, “voters need cues, and reporters need to find out what those cues are,” said Dane Waters, founder of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California, which conducts nonpartisan research on ballot measures.
At a minimum, he said, voters want to know who supports the measure, who opposes it, what their motivations are, how much money was spent for and against the measure, and where that money came from.
Waters also suggests reporters let their readers know whether a similar measure has been on the ballot in their state or local government before and either failed or was challenged in court after winning approval. If it’s a repeat initiative, how have supporters changed it?
Whenever possible, Waters added, reporters should also find out whether other states or local jurisdictions are considering similar proposals and if another state, municipality, or county already has passed such a measure, what the impact on the community was.
It can be hard to make that comparison because there is no single repository for the thousands of local ballot measures in any given election, Waters explained. But this year, Ballotpedia has collected data on local ballot measures in the 100 largest cities, state capitals, and throughout California.
Another critical piece of information missed in more than 90% of news articles on ballot initiatives, he said, is whether the measure is a citizen initiative or a legislative referendum — in other words, whether it got on the ballot because elected officials wanted it there or because thousands of citizens signed a petition to tackle a problem the government wasn’t willing to address.
State lawmakers typically refer a measure to the ballot when they have reason to believe the legislature won’t consider it or they don’t want to risk their political careers on a hot button issue such as gun control or abortion rights, Waters explained.
Certain local measures, such as bond issues, often require a vote of the people. And every state except Delaware requires voters to approve a state constitutional amendment.
Reporters should also find out whether other states or local jurisdictions are considering similar proposals.
THE STAKES, NOT THE RACE
For education-related ballot measures, Jonathan Becker, associate professor of educational leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, cautions reporters not to focus on the horserace. He says it’s more important to dig into what’s at stake with a ballot measure than which side is expected to win. “What are the proponents really trying to accomplish with the measure?”
In education, he said, “we talk less about partisanship and more about goals and values. Value judgements are the politics of education, whether it’s quality, equity, or excellence or some combination of those.”
Another hazard of reporting on controversial ballot measures is not enough reporting on the measure’s likely impact on the community. Too often left out of ballot measure stories are comments from impartial experts on whether similar policies have been successful in the past.
Under tight deadlines, there’s also a danger of parroting opponents’ negative claims about a measure without checking out the validity of those claims. If the opposition says a new policy initiative or a new school facility will break the budget, for example, check with state and local budgeters and independent school finance experts to see whether that’s possible.
If the opposition says a new policy initiative or a new school facility will break the budget, check with state and local budgeters.
ED BALLOT INITIATIVES 2024
Under the heading of K-12 education, a database maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures lists 12 statewide ballot measures, including one in Massachusetts that would remove a requirement that high school seniors pass a standardized state test to graduate.
Colorado has a measure that would create a constitutional right to use state money for homeschooling, charters schools, and private schools. And Kentucky has a measure that would authorize the legislature to provide funding for non-public schools.
A ballot initiative in Florida would amend the state constitution to require partisan elections for district school boards rather than the current nonpartisan electoral process. According to Figueredo of Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, it’s a first in any state. “If it passes, it removes any guard rails for fair and impartial school boards,” she said.
There’s a deeper, more nuanced story behind every ballot measure.
BEYOND THE BASICS
Not every measure on the ballot this Election Day or in any voting season will be groundbreaking or even matter to a broad swath of voters. And not every initiative will be controversial or attract national media attention.
But there’s a deeper, more nuanced story behind every ballot measure and it’s one that your readers need to understand — before they walk into the voting booth.
If it’s a tax increase aimed at raising money for local schools, for example, visit the schools and talk to teachers and students to find out whether renovations or expansion are needed — or not. Most voters will answer no to a tax hike, but might consider it if they know that local school facilities are inadequate.
If a measure would expand pre-K classes or create a new after-school program, voters will want to know how their district compares to others nearby and what the families who need those programs are doing for childcare now. Voters also would benefit from knowing what independent researchers and academic experts say about the educational merits of pre-K and after school programs.
But more information is not always better. Informing voters about a measure they need to decide in an election that’s just weeks away calls for restraint.
Ambitious reporters may want to dive into splashy controversies around a measure or dissect a referendum’s broader political implications. And it may be tempting to delve into related issues and sidebars other outlets haven’t covered. Some reporters may even be tempted to overplay a measure’s drawbacks without fully exploring the problems it’s intended to solve.
There’s a fine line between thorough reporting that answers the questions readers need answered before they vote and stories that run the risk of overwhelming or confusing voters. Save some of your notes and ideas for a deeper analysis — after the votes are counted.
Christine Vestal is a freelance journalist working in Washington, D.C., and
Charleston, South Carolina. She has written extensively on mental health, schools, drugs and addiction, and Native American issues.
Previously from The Grade
Praise & criticism for coverage of MA’s $41M charter school ballot debate
What if school board races don’t really matter the way we think they do?
The ‘red wave’ that didn’t happen
