Candidates agree education 'broken'
The candidates sounding off Thursday at South Elgin High School agreed on one thing -- the public school system is riddled with problems.
"No Child Left Behind is grossly under-funded and it's never going to work," 14th District congressional candidate Bill Foster said. "I like to think of it as all stick and no carrot."
Broc Montgomery, a candidate for the 55th District state House seat, agreed. "The funding never materialized ... it's not working in Illinois."
Foster and Montgomery, along with congressional candidates Ken Arnold, Stan Jagla and Randi Scheurer attended the Elgin Area School District U-46 Citizens Advisory Council's candidates forum.
State Reps. Fred Crespo and Ruth Munson had planned to attend the event but were called back to Springfield for an emergency transit session.
During the two-hour forum, candidates took turns fielding questions first from a moderator, then from the two dozen community members in attendance.
Issues addressed included inequities in funding, class size, preparation for college and helping students with special needs.
Responding to a question on how to better even out school funding, 8th District congressional candidate Scheurer advocated using sales taxes as another way of producing revenue for schools.
"Every child should have equal funding across the board," she said. "There should not be such discrepancies between rich and poor districts."
Montgomery would opt to further fund schools with a gambling expansion, he said.
Examining how to better prepare students to enter the global work force, Arnold, another 8th District congressional candidate, suggested developing better national testing to compare performances across states and within states.
"We would know better what areas need to be brought up from an extreme minimum," he said.
Jagla, a 6th District congressional candidate, took Arnold's thoughts a step further.
"We're addressing a broken system," Jagla said. "We're not only teaching the wrong things, but getting the wrong results."