I was recently contacted by a group of civic-minded folks working on a project through one of those nonprofits you’d be keen to believe can actually change the world. Fund MI Future is a joint effort of nonpartisan community organizations, unions of working people, and policy experts striving to create shared prosperity for all Michiganders by fully and fairly funding our public services like schools, roads, access to care, and clean water.

What’s not to love, right?

This particular initiative is called “It Takes a Millage–Getting local campaigns to pass” and the bright and articulate voices in our Zoom meeting wanted to know how to engender support for schools and other public essentials, like libraries and parks. How could we build campaigns that gave citizens a voice in improving their own communities?

I wish I had a scrapbook of victories to share, stories where clusters of vocal citizens used the power of organizing, sharing information, then voting to better fund schools. But no.

In my long career as a public school teacher, I’ve been a part of at least two dozen campaigns to improve schools via taxation—millages to build much-needed new buildings or playgrounds, millages to support programming that the community wants or already loves. I’ve done school open houses, phone banking, and door knocking with other teachers to spread the word about what that extra $138/year would yield for kids in our community. Not to mention meeting with other districts who had successfully run school millage elections to figure out what their secret sauce was.

Spoiler alert: there is no sure-fire way to build support for something that benefits the community in general, including necessities like emergency services and fire-fighting. School districts that routinely pass millages don’t have a winning formula that they roll out at each election. What they do have is consistently good leadership and a sense of community: It’s our school. We like it here. Voting yes is good for kids and for long-term property values.

People’s willingness to spend a little more money on common benefits largely depends, I think, on how they’re feeling about their life circumstances and prospects at the moment. And in 2026, I’m not sensing a lot of confidence in current leadership or optimism about America’s future. And that hopelessness… trickles down. So to speak.

My new friends in the “It Takes a Millage” (smiling) campaign were not put off by my gloomy memories, however. They were looking for stories about times when The People decided to create their own future, piece by electoral piece. And those stories are out there—communities like mine, for example, that tax themselves to fund installation and pickup of bins for recycling. Zohran Mamdani is currently running a masterclass in providing community services and cohesion, in New York City. It can be done.

Again—it takes leadership. But also a vision of what we want—how we could improve our personal futures, as well as our neighbors’, in the places we live and work. If we want to use our collective power to make [Your Town Here] a better place, what does that look like, precisely?

Subhead from a recent piece by Jennifer Berkshire: The left has no vision for public schools – and that’s a big problem. (It’s an awesome piece.)

Berkshire is thinking about the lack of attention to public education in the current pollical discourse. The Right has “choice,” culture war memes, and the dismantling of public education via various means and narratives.

But who’s championing positive, future-focused change and equity in K-12 schools?

Which is why I found the idea of local initiatives, locally funded, so appealing.

I’ve had enough experience in education funding to know that, when it comes to schools, Americans are often welded to two ideas. Neither of them is particularly honorable:

• It’s my money and I don’t want to share it with my community
• I don’t want my children to go to school with “them” (whoever your own personal “them” is)

If we want a better future for our schools—and our parks, roads, libraries and public clinics—we need to build support for common goals. And we need to clearly define those goals for a better future.

What changes would you vote for, to improve your local schools?