Education issues are poised to break through the din of presidential politics and economic anxiety in more than a dozen states next month, as voters confront ballot questions and constitutional amendments involving K-12 policy and school finance. High on the list are gambling referendums in six states--Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, and Oregon--that would either create new revenue sources for public schools or alter the flow of gambling-related money earmarked for education. Aside from the gambling measures, some of the most contentious ballot questions may be in Oregon, where voters are being asked to put strict limits on bilingual education and tie teacher pay raises explicitly to classroom performance. Those proposals--along with another that critics say could slash the amount of state lottery revenue available for schools--have drawn fire from Oregon teachers' unions, which have given nearly $2.5 million to a coalition working to defeat the measures.