Education

Republicans
Lauzen: Would not vote to re-authorize No Child Left Behind in its current form; believes more study is needed to determine the best education policy.

Oberweis: Would change No Child Left Behind before re-authorizing; would change to an incentive-based system and create new ways to measure a school’s success.

Dilger: Divides education into three "flavors": flunky, favorable and flourishing; believes No Child Left Behind puts too much emphasis on teaching to the test; wants a greater emphasis on recognizing the different ways students learn.

Democrats
Foster: Describes No Child Left Behind as “all stick, no carrot” in terms of benefits.

Laesch: Keys include retaining quality teachers, repealing testing requirements of No Child Left Behind that discourage students in need of help and improve funding by requiring a minimum of 15 cents of every federal tax dollar go toward education; wants smaller class sizes and expanded summer programs; wants more federal funding to alleviate property tax burden on district residents.

Stein: Would reauthorize NCLB only after a bipartisan panel decided which program’s were most effective and then find ways to fully fund them; push for greater amounts of science and math education; increase federal grants for college, while pushing for schools to maintain reasonable tuitions.

Serra: Not in favor of NCLB.