While the votes on the measure below will affect budgets in schools serving millions of children, the greatest impact of election day may well be determined by how the new Congress addresses the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (whenever that may occur), and by how the Congress handles matters of fiscal discipline and federal funding levels of Title I and NCLB.

In any case, a rundown of the key measures at hand:
In Colorado, both versions of the 65% solution were rejected, as the GOP-backed version and Democrat-backed version were apparently so similar (and thus, so confusing) that voters decided to reject both. If this was a deliberate ploy by state Democratic leaders, since their version of the measure was proposed after the original GOP version, it appears to have succeeded in stopping the momentum, at least temporarily, of the 65% solution movement.

In Idaho, a 1% sales tax increase that would have been used to create a public school improvement fund was rejected soundly. A provision to create slot machines and other gambling mechanisms at horse tracks in Ohio was also defeated which would have, in part, funded state college scholarships.

A mixed bag in California, as Proposition 1D, the $10.4 billion public school facility bond that was central to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s re-election promise passed even as Proposition 88 failed. This was of little surprise, as Proposition 88 faced a tougher road due to its nature as a new state property tax, which California voters have long distrusted. A local property tax floor of 10 mills proposed in Alabama Amendment 2 did pass with 57%, however, as the campaign effectively used translated the amendment into the rhetoric of providing a basic, decent level of education to all of the state’s children.

An Arizona cigarette tax passed that would raise ~$150 million a year for early childhood education passed, as did Nebraska Amendment 5, a $40 million endowment plan for the same purpose.

Michigan Proposal 5, which would have mandated annual state education budget increases in-line with the rate of inflation was rejected at the polls (62%-38%), as voters there expressed concerns over an over-stretched state budget. A lot of school officials will have to make tough decisions on what programs, facilities, or teachers to cut because of the defeat of this proposal, which would have raised approximately $565 million a year for public schools. Contrastingly, NV Question 1 to require that the state’s education budget be settled prior to any other line item did pass, even if (or perhaps because) its impact on children would be negligible owing to the lack of any provision about the actual level of funding the state must provide its schools.

Three Tax-Payer Bill of Rights (TABOR) proposals were rejected in Nebraska, Maine, Oregon, which most analysts agreed were probably good for public schools—as TABOR measures have been found to limit the amount of state aid to local public schools, with Colorado’s experience cited most often.